Lost Chapters: Brady
by mel.wolfgirl
Summary: "Nothing lasted forever, and Brady Jennings knew that. He knew it. But sometimes…sometimes it was easy to forget." Brady/OC romance fic, TIC canon, AU after Eclipse. Rated for mature topics and situations. (Prologue Rewritten, Chapters 1 and 2 Edited 2/24/2013)
1. Prologue

A/N I was never happy with this story, particularly the prologue, but I never could find the right way to change it to what I wanted. Since I'm finally writing again, and wanted to start positing on both this and B4, I went back and completely rewrote the prologue of LC:Brady. The next two chapters will be edited and adjusted to accommodate this new version too, but so far only the prologue is significantly changed. Yes, I'm working on TIC again, but I'm not rushing myself with writing it, and I'm not going to update very quickly. I've only started enjoying writing again, and I don't want to lose that enjoyment the way I did before. For anyone still reading this series, thanks for sticking out such a long wait. :)

_**Lost Chapters: Brady**_

_Prologue_

The waves crashed across the rocky eastern shoreline, churning and foaming as the wind picked up. The weather would turn bad soon, there were dark clouds rolling over the horizon, and there was no one on this beach today except for one. A lone figure walked along the water's edge, staring pensively at the waves, her dark wispy hair blowing across her face and getting in her eyes.

It wasn't a good day to be on the beach, even if it was mid-June, but Nikki Connweller needed to think about things.

A few weeks ago, Nikki had been on her first date with a guy that she had really liked, Brady Jennings. Brady, who she had liked all school year. Brady, who she had been beyond nervous and excited to go out with. Sure, buying a basketball in Forks while two of their friends were there wasn't exactly a _true_ date…but still. Considering that all of their contact up that point had been short, uncomfortable conversations and lots of lusty staring on her side, going somewhere with Brady had been close enough. Brady had even held her hand in the store, had even put his arm around her waist, had even snuck a kiss outside next to Collin Littlesea's Jeep.

It had been Nikki's first kiss, and she had loved every single second of it.

Nikki should have gone home and called her best friends, telling them all about it. She should have gone home and played basketball, thinking about the summer that she might have ahead of her. She should have gone home and eaten ice cream and daydreamed about Brady Jennings' mouth, and his shoulders, and that sparkle in his eye when he winked at her in the backseat of Collin's Jeep.

She should have done a lot of things. Instead Nikki watched three people she had thought she knew turn into horse-sized wolves, including the boy who had given her that first kiss, because a vampire passed only a few hundred yards away from them.

That day, Nikki hadn't done what Collin told her. She hadn't gone back to the Collin's Jeep. Instead she had stayed and watched Owen and Callie phase into a jumbled mass of confused, frightened, snarling wolves. That day she had watched Brady phase into a larger, angrier version of the same, driving the two others away from her and into the woods, as she stood wide-eyed and unable to run away. That day she had sat in Collin's Jeep on the side of the road for what seemed like forever, unable to drive it to La Push because she hadn't known how to drive a stick shift, stranded and shaking with stress and wondering just what the hell was going on. That day she had waited until Jared showed up out of the woods and driven her back to La Push, straight to the Tribal Council.

Nikki had never hated the Council before, but by the time Old Quil was done with her, she was pretty sure that she hated them now. They had lectured her for hours about things like phasing and shape-shifting wolves and vampires. _Vampires_, who regularly broke the borders of La Push and threatened the safety of the reservation. She was lectured about keeping secrets, about protecting the sons of the tribe, and about the dangers of her association with Brady. She was lectured about imprinting, and told that no, she wasn't Brady's imprint.

That one had been a hard pill to swallow, especially with a miserable looking Brady standing only a few feet away.

With the rest of the Pack occupied with something involving the Cullen family in Forks, and some other wolves from Canada, it had been Brady, Jared, and Kim who had stayed with her while she was with the Council. And afterwards, when Nikki had finally convinced the Council that she would keep her mouth shut, it had been Kim who had taken the brunt of her anger at the deceit. When she had finished tearing apart her sister for lying to her for all these years, Nikki had told Jared not to hug her no matter how upset she was. His ass had been lying to her too.

Brady, looking even more miserable, hadn't gotten yelled at. Instead he had walked her home, and when he had tried to see if she was okay, Nikki had told him that she needed some time to think about things. That she was leaving La Push for the summer with her parents instead of her original plan to stay with Kim and Jared, and she had left him standing on her porch alone, a rough-looking boy with an even rougher expression on his face.

Nikki was pretty sure that most first dates didn't end with the guy punching the girl's porch railing with a curse as he left, cracking the wooden post with just his fist.

When Nikki had left for Florida with her parents a couple days later, Jared had been fixing the porch, but Nikki hadn't said a word to him. After all, Kim had never lied to anyone before Jared, had never _had_ to lie for anyone. For a few days Nikki was pretty sure she hated Jared too, although that anger was short lived.

Nikki Connweller had expected this summer vacation in Florida to help her clear her mind, to come to terms with the fact that not only was her brother-in-law a shape shifting wolf, but that all of his friends were the same. To come to terms with the fact that her sister had been imprinted on by Jared, and had known all about it for years. To come to terms with the fact that Shane Qahla was dead because of a vampire. Shane, who had always treated Nikki like his true little sister, not just extended family through Jared and Kim's relationship. Shane, who took her to movies and played sports with her, and made more time for her than Jared had ever been able to. Shane, who she had loved like he was her real big brother.

Shane, who was dead, and whose parents would never know why.

She thought about those things, but more than anything, she thought about Brady Jennings. She thought about how frightened he had looked when Collin ran off, leaving Brady alone with her and Callie and Owen. She thought about how angry he had seemed when the Council kept on her and on her, even when she kept promising she would keep the Pack's secret. How embarrassed he had looked when they explained imprinting to her, and told her that basically she would never be "the one" for any of the Pack, Brady included. She thought about how disappointed he'd looked when she'd shut the screen door and asked him to give her some space.

Nikki wished that she could take it back now, but she couldn't, and she was still confused and upset enough about the rest of it that she wasn't sure what to do or say. So she thought, and she walked, and when there was a rock, she climbed it. Boring, but that was all she had to work with these days.

The wind picked up, blowing Nikki's hair away from her face as she passed beneath a pier, climbing the partially submerged rocks and not caring if she slipped. She was a good swimmer and had always been a bit of a risk taker. Quiet, but a risk taker, and it took a lot to scare her. Thinking Callie Jennings had overdosed had scared her. Watching poor Owen phase for the first time had scared her. The three wolf dogfight that had occurred afterwards, with her only a few feet away, had scared her. The idea of vampires _really_ scared her, but ocean waves over rocks? Not so much.

As much time as she spent talking to her friends on the phone, Nikki still felt very isolated. Her aunt and uncle had invited them all out here, and there was a reason why Nikki had originally planned on staying in La Push with Kim. Her parents were constantly visiting old friends of the family, none of whom had kids her age and all of whom seemed to be overly interested in what she wanted to do when she graduated. Nikki wasn't old enough to drive, and she was tired of watching movies at the cheap theater near the beach house they were staying in. Walking the beach alone was boring, but there was only so long that she could read before Nikki risked going cross-eyed.

At least there were lots of rocks to climb on in this area, where the shoreline cut back towards the road. As she was climbing down from the last one, feet finding sand again, Nikki realized that someone was standing near the water, further up the beach. The figure was obviously an adult man, a cowboy hat over his eyes and a cigarette hanging out of his lips as he stared out at the water, and Nikki wondered if maybe she should turn around and walk the other way. There was a big difference between not being easily scared and being stupid. But he must have seen her, because he glanced her way and met her eyes.

Nikki stopped dead in her tracks, suddenly forgetting what she had been so worried about.

The blond cowboy gave her a sexy smile, touching the brim of his hat respectfully. Instantly Nikki blushed, her pulse racing as she openly stared at him. She had known attractive men before. Her own brother-in-law was pretty hot, and Jared's friend Paul Coho had literally made her drool before. Nikki had seen Embry Call do pushups in a karate gi, and she had once been privy to Jacob Black taking a nap shirtless on Kim and Jared's couch. But never, ever had she seen anyone that looked like this.

He was the most beautiful man she'd ever seen.

As if he could tell what she was thinking, the cowboy's smile widened, and he winked at her before gesturing for her to join him. Her blush became fire in her cheeks, and Nikki found herself thinking things that she wasn't used to thinking. Certainly not about strangers that were probably twice her age. Biting her lip, she found herself walking towards him, stopping a few feet away.

"Hey there," the blond said in a friendly tone, his voice almost musical to her ears despite the low southern drawl.

"Hello," Nikki said shyly, aware that she was staring at him, but unable to look away. His eyes were so pretty: a blending of amber and red, like the one color was shifting into the other. He must not have minded her stares, because he waved her closer.

"Storm's coming. Most people don't hang around when the weather gets bad," the cowboy said, settling down in the sand and kicking his foot out in front of him. "Thought I'd be out here all by my lonesome."

Lonesome. That was a good word for how Nikki felt. Realizing that the people around her weren't who she had thought they were, that her own family weren't who she had thought they were, made her feel isolated. Alone. Yeah, lonesome pretty much summed it up.

"I was thinking about home," Nikki heard herself say softly. "I'm not from around here."

"Then we got something in common," the cowboy told her kindly. "It's hard when you miss home, ain't it?"

Nikki nodded, and then she settled down in the sand next to him, despite not having a towel or blanket to sit on. Normally Nikki didn't like getting sand underneath her clothes, it irritated her skin too much, but for some reason she didn't mind so much right now. The scent of his cigarette didn't bother her either, not when he smelled so good. Like the best cologne she'd ever smelled.

The cowboy was watching her, that smile still on his face. "You always go walkin' around by yourself? Cause it's not all that safe."

The young woman sighed, momentarily able to break away from his gaze as she remembered what had her out here. "I'm figuring that out," Nikki told the stranger. He was so nice, so friendly, that she felt like she could tell him anything, even the stuff she wasn't supposed to say. She just _knew_ that she could tell him anything, how could she not? "Compared to some things out there, walking around alone isn't nearly as scary in comparison. You wouldn't believe what I found out a few weeks ago."

"Wouldn't I?" he chuckled, and Nikki found herself locked in his gaze again. Damn, he was gorgeous, with those lean muscles and strong jaw. And those eyes…she could lose herself in those eyes.

"Why don't you try me?" the cowboy challenged her playfully. "I've been around a time or two, and I bet I've got a few stories you wouldn't believe either."

Nikki grinned, because he was grinning at her, thinking that she might be out here because of another guy, but this one was pretty nice. "Okay, but you can't laugh at me," Nikki said, blushing again because he had scooted closer to her. "Oh man, you're going to think I'm _crazy_."

"I don't mind a little crazy now and then," the cowboy promised her teasingly, winking again and taking a drag on his cigarette. "Makes life more interesting. Plus, I doubt you're crazy, babydoll, you're too pretty for that."

It was the first time a guy had ever told her she was pretty before, and Nikki blushed deeply at the compliment, looking down at the sand in her embarrassment.

"What would you say if I told you that there are actually vampires out there?" she asked. "And that they're trying to eat everyone up? And I'm out here, thinking about a boy that I like, whose sole purpose in life is to kill them? And I'm worried about the vampire part, but I'm even more worried that he's mad I haven't called him. See? It's crazy, all of it."

Crazy, but true, and Nikki couldn't help shake her head and the cowboy gestured for her to continue.

"I'm not supposed to say anything, but I found out on my first date with him. Then afterwards I found out the part about the lying and how everyone's keeping secrets about it. So I came out here to spend the summer with my parents, to try and get my head wrapped around it."

She paused, and when he still hadn't interrupted her, Nikki allowed herself to continue, spilling her heart out to this stranger in the cowboy hat.

"All I can think is how stupid I feel because I never figured it all out. And I feel horrible for yelling at my sister and brother-in-law, because it's not like they could say anything. I mean, I'm still pissed, but it's not their faults. And then the guy must think I'm so terrible. I never even thanked him for protecting me, I just told him I needed some time to figure things out. He saved my life, I think, because I was standing really close when…when someone else decided to kill vampires too. He kept them from hurting me, and I basically shut the door in his face."

The cowboy didn't answer for a moment, and then he began to chuckle. The stunning man pinched the lit end of his cigarette out and rolled what was left between his fingers. "Babydoll, if you knew how many doors I've had slammed in my face, you wouldn't feel so bad. It ain't any fun if you can't rile a lady up at least a little."

Nikki smiled and shook her head. "That's what Jared thinks about Kim. It's almost like he enjoys getting her worked up, and she falls for it every time. But that's not really me. I'm calmer than she is, but some stuff does set me off. I don't like getting lied to, even when there's a valid reason for it.

"Want some advice?" When she nodded, the cowboy flicked his cigarette and took out another one, lighting it up. "When people ain't liars, they usually ain't all that good with getting lied to. But when people are used to telling lies, it's not so bad to get lied to, they're used to it. Same with keepin' secrets about themselves. While you're over here, eatin' your heart out over some boy that spun you in a circle because of his secrets, he's probably just sittin' at home watching a movie and taking himself a nice long nap."

Nikki blinked and then laughed. "Wow. That…sucks."

"People aren't always what they seem, but that don't always make them bad." The cowboy quirked her a knowing smile. "It don't always make them good either."

The young woman decided that his eyes were amazing. They were shifting color again, growing darker now.

"Yeah…so, why are you out here?" she heard herself ask.

The cowboy leaned closer, and Nikki's breath caught. He smelled so good, and he was so gorgeous, and all those things that she wasn't supposed to think about doing with a complete stranger came rushing to the surface again. She could picture kissing him, this pale haired cowboy, like she had kissed…who had she kissed? It didn't matter, because she wanted to kiss him. Only him. She wanted to touch him, and she wanted to sit closer to him. It didn't seem to bother him at all that her knee was pressing into his leg, or that her chest was tightening, her muscles tightening as if she was anticipating…something…

"What's your name?" the pale haired, dark eyed cowboy asked her, voice curling through her senses like liquid fire, burning her everywhere. She had never felt anything like this before, this pure unadulterated lust. She was pretty sure she shouldn't be pressing her chest into the bicep of a stranger, but she couldn't help herself. "Babydoll? What's your name? Where you from?"

"…Ni…Nikki…Connweller. From La Push, Washington."

"And this boy you're thinking about. He got a name too?"

She could barely speak, her throat had tightened, and her heart was beating so fast, but Nikki managed to whisper breathily, "Brady...his name is Brady."

If anything, the cowboy's grin grew even broader, as if that was exactly what he wanted to hear.

"Well, Nikki, I'm out here cause I made somethin' that I didn't like all that much, and it got me into trouble with someone that I liked a whole hell of a lot. It lost me a friend, actually, and I'm a little lonely myself. So I've been sittin' out here, thinking that maybe I ought to try making somethin' all over again. Try again, see if I can do it better this time."

The cowboy's eyes sparkled mischievously as he took her face in his palm, stroking his hand along her jaw. "I told them boys that getting Jackie hurt was going to cause them some problems. And then here you come along just when I was getting hungry anyways. Maybe you and I could go a ways with each other, see if you don't do any better than the last one did. Wouldn't that just stick in their craws?"

She didn't understand, but she didn't have to. Nikki was lost in those dark eyes, eyes that glittered pitch black as she stared at him. She licked her lips and his eyes followed the motion.

"How about this, Nikki. I'm gonna have you pick a number between one and five, and you tell me which one. I've got something planned for each, and all of them are fun, so you don't worry one bit."

He didn't want her to worry, so Nikki didn't. Instead she smiled and leaned closer, inhaling what must be the perfect cologne. "Four," Nikki decided. "I always liked the number four."

The cowboy liked number four too, although he told her that there had been far more interesting numbers that she could have picked.

The next part was hazy, but not at all unpleasant, not even when she tried to think about it later. She remembered the stranger pulling her hair back and doing something with his fingernail to the higher side of her neck, up where her hair covered what must have ended up being a scratch. She remembered the stranger's breath on her neck, cool and sweet, sending shivers down her spine as he whispered words to her. Words she didn't remember now, but that she knew that she was supposed to remember at some point. Then she remembered fixing her hair as the blond cowboy smiled and told her that she ought to get on home before he changed his mind, before he had himself a little too much fun with her.

Nikki vaguely remembered being disappointed as she obediently walked away.

Later, the young woman sat on her bed in the beach house guest room, rubbing at a sore part of her neck and wishing that she had handled things differently. Wishing that she hadn't yelled at her sister, that she had hugged Jared and told him that she was sorry again about Shane. Wishing that she had sat out on her porch and talked to Brady instead of bailing on him. Wondering why she felt lightheaded, or why she wanted to go find her brother-in-law's friends and stay with them for a while. Wondering why there were tears on her cheeks as she reached for her phone.

Kim's cell must have been dead, because it went straight to voicemail, but when Nikki called Jared's cell, her brother-in-law immediately picked up. He listened quietly as Nikki said that how sorry she was for how she had treated both of them. The couple were out to dinner, but they spent a good hour talking to her instead of continuing their date, passing the phone back and forth as they promised her that it was okay. They understood why she had been so upset, and they wanted a chance to talk it all out when she got home. They loved her and they missed her already.

After a brief hesitation, Jared had murmured that if she wanted to talk to Brady, they knew he was planning on spending all evening at their place. One of Brady's friends had taken off without warning right after Nikki had left, and Brady wasn't handling it all that well. Maybe talking to Nikki would help.

That call was harder, and it was past midnight when Nikki finally caved and reached for the phone again, dialing a number by heart and leaving a message for Brady on her sister's answering machine. It was the same call she would make three more times that summer before she gave up calling him. Gave up telling him that she was sorry for how she handled things. Gave up asking for him to call her back, so that they could talk.

There was really no point to it. For the rest of the summer, Brady Jennings never did.


	2. Chapter One

A/N Did anyone catch that the first couple lines of the prologue were the same as the epilogue of B3? (grins) I changed this chapter a little, even though all the scenes are the same. Mostly I took out references to what happened in the original prologue, and that meant that some of the dialogue between Brady and Nikki shifted. I'm happier with it now, because I always felt like the first two chapters of this story were somewhat awkward and confusing in regard to the timeline.

_**Lost Chapters: Brady**_

_Chapter One_

There was a time in Brady Jennings' life when the first day of school had filled him with dread.

He would sit at his parent's table, trying so hard not to spill wheat-o's, his little hands shaking with stress. Would the teachers be nice to him? Would Collin still sit with him at lunchtime? Would anyone find out that he'd cheated last year, and that he really didn't know anything?

As he sat at a kitchen table that had only held good memories, stuffing himself full of waffles, Brady Jennings relished the fact that at least he now knew the answers. No, the teachers wouldn't be nice to him. Yes, Collin would always sit with him at lunchtime. And as much as he'd been held back, there was no one in La Push that didn't know Brady sucked at school. Brady thrived on consistency, and the knowledge that at this moment, at least he knew exactly where he stood.

Right now, he was the lucky ass sonofabitch who was eating breakfast, listening to the shower running and Kim's bare feet padding around the small apartment. He was the junior in the least worn pair of clothes he owned, with his hair freshly cut and his scuffed tennis shoes scrubbed until they were clean. He was Jared's old belt, and half a bottle of maple syrup, and a worn leather cuff hiding a tattoo on his wrist. Right now, it was good to be him. But like always, Brady made sure to silently remind himself the same words that he reminded himself every day: Nothing lasted forever. Enjoy it, because one day it would be gone.

At least if it all disappeared tomorrow, this morning he'd had waffles.

"Hey Brady, do you have your book bag?" Kim asked, bustling past the table behind him right as Brady shoved a massive bite into his mouth. A couple of years ago he would have ignored her, or grunted, but this morning Brady pointed at his face to show her why he wasn't answering yet.

Breakfast at the Qahla household was usually cereal, or if there was a good enough sale on them, toaster pastries. But today was the first day of school, Brady's fourth year in high school and first attempt at his junior year, and like all other events that Jared and Kim deemed important, it was celebrated with a more advanced form of breakfast food. Jared and Kim had both gotten up early to make the waffles, and Brady was just getting started on his first massive plate of them. There was still a second plate of waffles waiting for him next to his first, and both were piled high enough to make even a teenaged shape-shifting wolf happy.

"Got it at my feet," Brady mumbled around a smaller mouthful of waffles as she came back in, and Kim smiled at him when he added, "Wannawaffle?"

"Yeah, but I'm running late. Jake was supposed to pick me up five minutes ago, and he only builds in ten minutes for my being late."

The newly married Kim Connweller, now Kim Qahla, had a tendency of losing things in the morning, and seemed to take it as a given that everyone else did the same. Currently she had lost a pair of earrings that she had taken off last night, having been more occupied with Jared's excessive tickling of her than where she had left her jewelry. Now she was wandering about in every high traffic area in her searching, her nose scrunching as she peered at the floor. She did a round of the living room, flicking on the television and turning to the morning news before returning to make a second sweep of the kitchen.

"What about your lunch money?" Kim asked, her face splitting into a guilty grin as she disappeared behind the refrigerator door. Brady raised an eyebrow at her, not realizing that he had butter on his chin until it dropped to hit the table. Flushing slightly, he scrubbed a quick arm across his face before folding and shoveling the next syrup and butter covered bite into his mouth.

"Brady?"

"Yeah, I got it," the young wolf promised, although his words were muffled enough that he was surprised that Kim even understood. She retreated from the fridge with an orange juice mustache and winked at Brady before licking her upper lip. Brady grinned and swallowed his waffles. Jared hated it when Kim drank from the orange juice carton, something about pulp and lipstick. Speaking of which…

"That's really gross, Kim," Jared growled out from the small apartment's only bedroom, where he had just been showering.

It was instinctive, even after all these years, for Brady to flinch at the sound of the dominant male of the household being angry. But Brady had memorized Jared's different tones of voice. This one might have been a growl but it was a playful one, meant to pull a guilty squeak out of Kim. Brady stifled a laugh as Kim did just that before sticking her tongue out at the bedroom. Kim stole a corner of one of Brady's dry waffles before resuming her earring hunt. Brady would tell her where they were but...

"Your earrings are on the coffee table," Jared told Kim, wandering into the living room and pausing in front of the television. "Check under there, in case Collin kicked them off."

Collin, even though it could have just as easily been Brady who had kicked off her earrings. Both wolves had been there last night, watching movies and stuffing their faces with pizza. Smiling slightly, Brady licked the syrup off his fork, mentally categorizing just another moment when Jared Qahla had proven himself the epitome of cool. The older wolf hadn't finished getting ready for the day yet, and stood barefoot in front of the television in a pair of jeans, a towel still haphazardly over his shoulder as he watched the news.

"Stock market rose fifteen points yesterday," he informed them all, looking pleased and Brady grunted, acknowledging Jared.

After nearly three months of deliberation and strenuous financial soul searching, Paul and Jared had invested a small amount of money that they had pooled together. Something about the pair's "Great Plan of Financial Stability and Success". All Brady knew was that Jared had taken to muttering about Dow Jones and stalking the morning news to see if they had become millionaires yet. According to Collin, Paul was even worse, and had been making charts from newspaper clippings from the financial section. Apparently getting married had flipped the boring freak switch in both of them, and they couldn't help themselves.

Weirdoes.

"Yay, I found them," Kim declared happily from the carpet, brandishing her earrings for them both to see as she climbed to her feet. The short imprint went up on her toes and kissed Jared's jaw, which was as tall as she could reach. "Thanks," she added softly, earning a pleased smile from the older wolf.

Jared rested his forehead against hers briefly, dropping a kiss to the bridge of her nose before turning back to the television. Apparently someone somewhere had burned something, and now someone somewhere was yelling at the television screen. Brady didn't care so much, not when he had breakfast to enjoy, but Jared apparently cared, because he clucked his tongue disapprovingly and shook his head before switching over to Spongebob Squarepants. Now _that_ was some good shit.

"Brady, do you have your book bag?" Jared asked, wandering back out of the living room towards his and Kim's bedroom. Brady tried to answer but timed it wrong, half choking on his food and spraying bits of waffle in the process, and Jared stuck his head out of the bedroom. "Brady?"

"He's got it, Jared," Kim called back, putting her earrings in while slipping her feet into a pair of high heeled shoes.

She looked nice, something Brady recognized but wasn't sure how to say without it coming out wrong. Jake was driving her to Hoquiam today. The Alpha had said he wanted a little Alpha/imprint bonding time, and Kim was trying to get some of the stores there to carry her and Emily's jewelry. Plus Jake made a special point to always check on Jack's horses, to make sure Bella and Ness weren't forgetting to feed them, and all of the imprints liked going too. Kim had started getting attached to the young one that Nessie liked so much.

"What about your lunch money?" Jared added after a moment, his voice muffled as he pulled a shirt over his head.

"I got it," Brady managed to get out this time, and he must have given something away because Jared's tone changed.

"_Brady_." Uh oh. Busted.

"…Some of it?" he amended, shooting Kim a repentant look. After all, it had been her idea that Brady should be waffled so well this morning. "And I was planning on winning the rest of it back from Collin before lunch?" he added hopefully.

Jared snorted from the bedroom and Kim growled herself, a small little vocal noise so unintimidating that Brady found it cute. Not that he'd ever tell her that. However Kim was the epitome of prepared, especially since Brady had lost his lunch money at least once a week all last year, and she went back to the fridge. She came back and stuffed several packages of something into the book bag at his feet, making a face at him.

"If you're going to keep gambling, Brady, at least do it with someone who doesn't cheat as much as Collin does. Oh crap, Jake's outside, I've got to go." Kim grabbed her small case of jewelry and wrapped an arm around Brady's neck, hugging him tightly and ignoring his muscles stiffening beneath the unexpected action. Kim waited, and by Brady's third breath his muscles started to loosen and he shifted his weight into the imprint. Kim didn't mind, and she still dropped a kiss on his temple. She knew it was the best he could do sometimes.

"Good luck today, and remember what I said."

"Don't gamble with Collin?" Brady chuckled, and Kim rolled her eyes playfully as she disappeared back into the hall. She returned with Jared on her heels, managing to nab another corner of one of Brady's waffles on her way out the door. But when Jared did the same a whole one, walking to the doorway and nodding at the Alpha straddling the bike outside, Brady finally allowed himself a small plaintive whine. Offering Kim food was safe enough, but Jared could clean these plates almost as fast as Brady could.

"Hey, first day of school here," Brady grumbled, quickly grabbing the second plate of waffles and pouring syrup over them. "I can't go to class hungry."

Jared smirked at that and eyed the already empty plate of food. "Yeah," he drawled, amused. The rumble of Jake's motorcycle said that Kim was well and gone, so Brady and his breakfast and snuck over to his couch. Spongebob had started flipping crabby patties, a look of pure joy on the cartoon character's face.

"Gotta do well in school, Jared, or I'll be doing _that_ shit all my life."

Jared smirked as Brady shoveled the rest of his food down his throat but didn't say anything. To be honest, Brady wasn't looking forward to today. It would be the first time that he and Collin would be the oldest wolves in the school, and while that thought might have made him grin a few years ago, now Brady just didn't want to have to deal with it. He didn't want to have to deal with Callie and the far too complex emotions his cousin and her thoughts sent rolling through him. He didn't want to have to deal with Owen, and the baser emotions the younger male wolf caused. And he didn't want to be responsible for anyone else's actions…Brady had his hands full handling his own.

Instead he wanted to finish his waffles and watch cartoons, and snort in laughter when Patrick Starfish ended up butt ass naked and upturned in a mop bucket.

"Fuckin' Patrick," Brady sniggered, shaking his head. Jared shot him a quirky grin but left him alone. Cartoon time was Brady time, so Jared just lounged on his armchair, trying to read what was left of a newspaper that Paul had attacked with a pair of scissors yesterday. Seriously, if anyone knew what Collin and Brady knew…complete weirdoes.

Right about the time that the remaining waffles met their demise, Spongebob ended up saving the day, and Patrick found some pants. There was no dragging his feet anymore. Jared was getting the face twitch, the twitch that meant the older wolf was doing his damnedest not to start nagging, so Brady finally turned off the television and dumped his plates into the sink. Brady glanced at the clock and then pulled on his shoes.

"Have a good day, Brady," Jared said over his newspaper, and Brady felt that familiar rush of discomfort at the words. It was easier with Kim, always had been.

The muscular young wolf told himself he didn't care and grunted his version of goodbye. "Later."

Later. Later, because a leech could break the borders today and kill either one of them. Later, because there were other wolves out there and there was no telling if La Push was going to be turned on. Later, because people left all the time, for good reasons and for really shitty ones too. Later, because Brady wasn't so stupid to think that Jared and Kim Qahla couldn't ever change their minds about him. Enjoy it, Brady told himself, not aware that his face wore a scowl as he stood in front of the entryway mirror, tugging the collar of his shirt straighter. Enjoy it, because one day it would be gone.

Brady was halfway down the steps when he realized that he was missing something, and he cursed and turned on his heel. Jared Qahla stood in the doorway with a black book bag in his hands and an amused smile on his face. "Every year, huh kid?"

"Shuddup," Brady growled back in embarrassment, grabbing his bag and glaring at Jared, but Brady still mumbled thanks and paused long enough for Jared to thump him affectionately on the head before turning to go. At least this time Brady's hair was too short to look stupid after Jared ruffled it.

The quick way to school was to leave the tiny apartment and turn right. Brady went left.

Every day Brady went to Collin's house and the pair of them either drove (at least before Collin had his jeep taken away) or walked to school. They had done it since the first days of elementary school, when two scared little boys ran to the school building together. Collin had been scared because he didn't know if the teachers would let him draw with his extra cool wide tip markers instead of those stupid boring crayons. Brady had been scared that no one would talk to him, and since Collin talked all the time, Brady had been determined to stay with him. Through elementary and middle school, through too many years of high school, through Brady finally abandoning the tree in Collin's back yard for a couch in Jared's living room, Brady had always gone to school with Collin. It was their thing.

It was their thing, and so every day Brady passed by that house, the one he had grown up in. Sometimes they were there, sometimes they weren't, but it didn't matter. Every day, because the hell with all of them. He was seventeen and didn't have to put up with their shit any more. Brady spat on his father's front lawn as he passed by, ignoring the shudder that went through him from his own actions.

Fuck 'em, because there was _nothing_ they could do to him now that someone else hadn't already done. Fuck both of them.

There was a small rounded stone that rested on the property line between the Jennings' and the Littlesea's homes, and as always, crossing that imaginary line brought a sense of relief that was almost embarrassing to him. Collin was already waiting for Brady, standing in the doorway and saying something to his mother over his shoulder. Michelle Littlesea fretted over Collin worse than mother hen, and Brady snorted out a laugh as he heard his friend replying.

"Yeah, I got it, Mom. Yeah, I got that too…no seriously, it's a _school_. They're not gonna run out of pencils, Mom…Okay. Okay. Okay, sheesh, I get it. No, I got plenty of rest, didn't you hear me come in last night? You must have been asleep…Mom, come on. I've gotta go, Brady's here. Yeah, I love you too."

"Pussy," Brady coughed into his hand, and from the house, Collin sniggered, dragging himself out of Michelle Littlesea's motherly bubble.

Short and stocky, Michelle Littlesea followed her son out of the house, wringing her hands with concern on her face as she looked down where Brady was waiting in the front yard. "Hello, Brady," Michelle said quietly, and Brady dropped his eyes off to the side.

He considered saying nothing, would have a couple years ago, but he could hear two voices in his head that wouldn't approve. "Ma'am," he mumbled, shifting uncomfortably.

"You boys did better this last year," Michelle said, her face creasing in worry. "But colleges won't take either one of you if you don't get better grades. Brady? Collin? You know this, right?"

This time Brady did stay silent, his teeth gritting down to cover his instinctive reply. College? Anyone who thought that his ass was going to get to make it to college was insane. Collin however just rolled his eyes and wrapped his arms around his mother's neck, giving her a bear hug.

"We'll be good, we promise," Collin teased, hoisting her off her feet a few inches. "Hey Mom, are you losing weight? No wonder Dad can't stop staring at you—"

"Collin! Put me down!" Michelle demanded, but her concerned expression had slipped into a grin. Collin was not above bullying her with hugs and shameless compliments and Michelle Littlesea knew it. Still grinning, she shook her head and stepped back out of his arms and into the doorway. "Okay, you goofball, go to class. And pay attention!"

"We always do, Mom," Collin lied outrageously, calling over his shoulder as she moved back into the doorway. The handsome young wolf waited until she had closed the screen door before jumping off the front steps onto the grass close to Brady. Collin landed slightly off balanced, and since Brady was Collin's best friend, of course he was required to give Collin a friendly little shove to help matters along.

"Omph," Collin grunted, hitting the ground in his new clothes, his book bag flying. And because this was Collin, the other young wolf simply laughed and hopped back up to his feet. "Good one, man," he decided, grinning back at the front door, which now had a head poked out of it. "I'm okay, Mom, it's just Brady's way of saying he loves me."

Mrs. Littlesea gave Brady a disappointed look before pulling back into the house and shutting the door. Brady tried to ignore that. It wasn't like the Littlesea's hadn't been looking that way at him for the last four years, since he and Collin had phased at thirteen and Brady had stopped being welcome at their house. Still Brady flushed slightly and turned a cold shoulder to the front door, his face sliding into a scowl as he resolved to ignore her. Oblivious, Collin started brushing at his clothing, knocking off some dirt and grass from his jeans.

As he brushed, Brady's eyes caught on the cut of Collin's clothing. "Are you seriously wearing those to school?" Brady asked, mildly horrified, and Collin grinned widely.

"They make my ass look good," Collin declared, turning around and giving Brady a view. Brady had never consciously looked at another man's ass before and wasn't planning on it now, but Collin and Brady were still growing and had both gained a few inches this past summer, bulking out. A six and a half foot tall wolf was one thing. A six and a half foot wolf in extra skinny jeans was entirely another.

Collin grabbed up his book bag and slung it over his shoulder, sticking out a foot and waggling it back and forth. "Although I've gotta be honest, I've never realized that my ankles were so attractively slender before."

Brady shuddered.

It was only a few minutes' walk to school, but Brady wasn't in any hurry. Yeah, it was cool that they were juniors now…that would have really sucked if they had gotten stuck back in sophomore year for a third time. But there were certain things that Brady was not looking forward to at that school, and it wasn't as if Collin could walk very fast in those pants anyways.

"Dude, this shit really compresses my junk," Collin muttered, sticking a hand in his back pocket and trying to tug the fabric looser without tearing it. "My puppy parts are in lockdown."

"It's not my fault you wore a fucking man girdle."

"Girdle? Brady, a girdle's on your _belly_, this shit's on my junk."

Brady shook his head and smirked at Collin. "You're wrong, dude, a girdle's around your junk. You're thinking of those things… those hot lacy things…a garter belt."

Collin tipped his head to the side, trying to figure that one out. "Wait, aren't garter belts on your belly, too?"

"Not on my belly," Brady laughed, flipping Collin off. "You're the one wearing the man girdle."

Collin returned the sentiment, but he had a frown on his face, as if he was trying to still work out what Brady had explained. "Dude, are you sure—?" But Brady ignored him, deciding instead to rifle through his book bag. This caught Collin's attention, curious wolf that he was, and Collin leaned in to look as Brady pulled out a small yellow package. "Oh hells yeah, Kim bought _Lunchables_? My mom will never buy that shit anymore."

Brady snapped his teeth only half playfully, stepping sideways out of the more dominant wolf's reach. "Get your own, Collin, this is mine." Like a puppy, Collin followed, staring at the plastic container longingly.

"What kind is it?" he asked, and Brady tipped the Lunchable enough for his friend to see the partially peeled cover. "Oooh, turkey and cheese. I fucking _love_ turkey and cheese."

Brady had already started building his little cracker sandwiches as he walked, seemingly oblivious to Collin's look of entreaty. "Yeah, me too," Brady agreed, stacking a piece of round processed turkey product on an equally round cracker. The square piece of cheese gave the whole thing an artistic flair, and Brady held it up to appreciate its glory.

"Dude, give me one," Collin said, "I barely had anything to eat this morning. Mom was all 'School's important, blah blah blah', and I kept hiding from her in the bathroom.

"No." Collin looked hurt as Brady popped the cracker stack into his mouth and began munching. "This is really good shit. Hey Collin, do you think that's why they call these things crackers? Cause they're cracktastic? Like, once you have one, you keep wanting more?"

The handsome wolf growled and bared his teeth at Brady. "You know I could just _order_ you to give me one."

"Yeah, and when that shit gets back around to Paul, he can _order_ you to be his bitch again," Brady snickered as he worked on his second cracker stack. "What was it he made you do last time you were pulling rank excessively? Scrub the Shaggin' Waggin' with a toothbrush?"

"With _my_ toothbrush, and then brush my teeth with it afterwards," Collin grimaced distastefully. "The outside wasn't so bad, but the inside was skunk ass nasty."

Brady smirked and waggled the second cracker stack in front of Collin's face before eating it. "Your mom's skunk ass nasty."

"I'll make sure to tell yours when I nail her tonight," the dominant wolf shot back, annoyed. Collin was a momma's boy at heart, and very few things bothered him as much as insults to his mother. A broad grin stretched Brady's face, and he made sure to rattle his Lunchable so Collin wouldn't forget about it. Not that it was likely, Collin was staring at him longingly.

Collin watched silently as Brady began to make a third stack, finally saying plaintively, "Are you really going to eat all of those in front of me?"

"Yup," Brady drawled lazily, before pausing half a step, as if considering something. "Well, maybe not. Five bucks."

"What?"

"Five bucks and you can have the rest of it."

Collin rolled his eyes and snorted. "Five bucks, are you retarded? No fucking way, man. Those things cost half that and your pudgy ass has already eaten part of it. I'm not an idiot…two bucks."

Brady shrugged, as if it didn't matter. "I'm not the one begging for it, Collin. Cost and demand. It didn't cost me shit so I'm demanding that you pay more. Four bucks."

"Dude, do you ever pay attention to _anything_ in school? Three bucks."

"Huh? And three-fifty, I'm not going any lower."

Collin grumbled at that but then grudgingly handed over the money. "Fine. Give me my Lunchable, dipshit."

"Fucktard."

"Nice one."

As he handed the partially eaten Lunchable over, Brady nodded, pleased. "I've being saving it for a while," he admitted, un-shouldering his book bag so that he could rummage through it. He pulled out the second of three Lunchables that Kim had put in there. Collin was mid-bite when Brady started contentedly creating new cracker stacks, this time with ham and cheese. The look on the handsome wolf's face was one of dismay.

"I hate you," Collin informed Brady before licking cracking crumbs off of his lips.

Brady grinned but said nothing, concentrating on eating instead. He had hoped that the food would distract Collin long enough, but unfortunately Collin was girl watching as he ate. As a pair of freshman hurried past, one of them shooting Collin a doe eyed look that Collin returned with a wink, Brady groaned. Any moment now Brady's best friend was going to start in on him again…three…two…one…three quarters…something fifths…

"Hey, so she's back you know," Collin said, his voice deceptively casual. "Are you going to talk to her?"

Brady grunted, his teeth tightening down. He must have been scowling because Collin sighed. "You should talk to her," Collin pressed. "You really liked her, and…okay, I know the situation of her finding out about the Pack wasn't all that great…"

Brady rolled his eyes as they approached the school building. "You think? Hey Nikki, I know this is our first date and all, but I sprout fur out of my ass and have a fucking tail," the wolf growled. "Oh, and there are vampires, I could imprint on someone without any warning, and the Council is going to interrogate you for two hours because of me. Have fun getting as far away from me this summer as you fucking can."

Brade—"

"Just do me a favor and don't give me any shit if she blows me off. I'm not in the mood for it. Let it go."

"But dude, _she_ kept calling _you_—" Collin started to say, then he realized why Brady wanted the conversation done. Owen was waiting for them on the school steps, the newly phased wolf shifting awkwardly as he tried not to accidentally bump into anyone or step on feet. Fucking Owen. Brady had tried, he knew that being Packmates meant that he should be more tolerant of the guy. He should want to be around Owen, should want to help Owen, should want to be attached at the hip, but there was no getting around it.

Brady just couldn't stand him.

Collin gave Brady a look that said he'd keep his mouth for now, but if Brady knew Collin, the other wolf would be bugging him about it later. For some reason Collin seemed to think that Brady was incapable of functioning without someone dragging him through life by the hair. That was okay, because Brady thought Collin was a pushy asshole who made most of his decisions with his dick. Unfortunately, Collin was Brady's best friend. Like creepy ass extra skinny jeans, Brady would just have to deal with it.

"H…hey," Owen stuttered softly as they approached, and Brady gritted his teeth, nodding tersely. Collin, however, grinned and threw an arm around the youngest wolf's shoulders.

"Hey hey, Owen my man," Collin said loudly, drawing eyes their way as Collin dragged Owen forcibly closer to him and Brady. Into the circle, into the Pack.

If anyone thought it was odd that an extremely unpopular sophomore was hanging out with junior Collin Littlesea, arguably the most popular student in the school now that Seth Clearwater and Jacob Black had graduated, no one would dare say anything. Phasing may have given Owen the musculature, the strength, and the speed of the rest of them, but beneath it all was still the same kid that Owen had always been. Owen was still the same kid who had a hard time holding a conversation with anyone but Cassie Coho, the same kid who stuttered every other word, and the same kid who went crimson anytime someone of the opposite gender came his way.

Unfortunately phasing had shown that it wasn't just a speech impediment. Owen's slowness was far more comprehensive, and if anyone wanted to be at school less than Brady, it was Owen. Even with easy patrol schedules, the pup had barely scraped through the last year. To his humiliation, Owen's parents were talking about sending him to Forks for schooling, where they had more classes that could accommodate his learning curve. If situations had been different, Brady would have felt for the guy…hell, he did feel for the guy. But it was kind of hard to be too sympathetic when the things that Brady would rather not think about were what was _always_ on Owen's mind, hounding Brady constantly.

Fucking Owen. Sometimes Brady really did hate that kid.

Still, Owen was a damn good wolf, even Brady would give his Packmate that. He could phase in a tight area, could run nearly as fast as Seth could, and even the Beta couldn't follow Jake's instructions as quickly. It was as if the visual aspect of the Packmind had been specifically made for Owen, and even if he didn't have a lot to think about, or a lot to say, what he thought and said in wolf form was crisp and crystal clear.

Unlike a lot of them, phasing had made Owen's life better, had brought him a group of people that stood tightly around him, and not a single one of them, not even Brady, would put up with the cruel comments that used to be sent Owen's way. With Jack gone, Owen was the most submissive wolf in the Pack, and with Callie the only she-wolf in La Push, Jake hovered over both of his newest wolves like a mother hen.

A massive, terrifying, could-probably-stop-Brady's-heart-from-beating-with-a-strong-enough-Alpha-order mother hen.

"Are you catching this, Owen? This is what I like to call a 'Brady's personal retreat'," Collin's voice cut across Brady's thoughts, drawing his attention. Brady's brow furrowed as he tried to catch up with the conversation as Collin continued cheerfully. "Brady personal retreats happen multiple times a day, in which Brady decides to check out of the universe and spend a few moments brooding and being grumpy about things that only Brady is allowed to know about. Having spent the better part of two decades with Mr. Jennings over there, I can, with sufficient credibility, claim that he is thinking about nothing. Nothing at all. He's pretty much an idiot."

Brady and Owen both blinked, trying to catch up, and then Brady grunted and flipped Collin off. "You're a dick," he decided, yawning as he headed into the building.

"See, Owen?" Collin sighed dramatically, hauling Owen into the school after Brady. "It's just like I was telling you before: no one gives me the respect I deserve. Up and coming Packmate here, but noooooo…"

The reservation school was small, but there were enough students mulling about that Brady had to make sure that he too didn't step on anyone. And of course, because he was Brady Jennings and shit just never seemed to go the way he wanted it to, he turned the corner and ran exactly into the person he least wanted to run into, the person that he least wanted to talk to, least wanted to see. Not only did he run into her, he knocked her ass to the floor. Short and a little less slender than three months ago, her dark hair falling across her face as she stared up at him with wide, pretty eyes, was Nikki Connweller.

Damn, but that girl had gotten to him.

Maybe their Pack was jinxed and they were all doomed to have their love lives ruined before they even begun, with Brady just continuing the trend. Maybe she was just the most recent in a long, long string of disappointments, and another on the list of people that he shouldn't give a rat's ass about. At least the three months she'd been gone this summer had been easier, simpler. Hell, Brady hadn't even called her back the few times that she had left him messages at Jared's place. It wasn't that he hadn't wanted to…Brady just hadn't known what to say. Sorry that was the worst date in history? Sorry you got to hear about imprinting from _Billy Black_? Sorry he managed to fuck _everything_ about that day up? No, it was better just to not pick up the phone in the first place.

He'd figured he'd see Nikki in school, that there would be no avoiding it. Brady hadn't planned on talking to her more than necessary, but there she was, sprawled on her ass and hell if a slight smile wasn't threatening to appear on his face at the startled look on her own. Three years ago Brady would have simply stepped around her and kept on walking, determined to keep his walls up and locked tightly around him, but the Brady of three years ago wasn't the Brady of today. And there was no way he was going to leave this girl on the floor.

"That was stupid," Brady mumbled as he bent down and took her elbow, helping her up. Not her hand, not her waist, not her arm. No, for some reason he had to look like a total asshole, some bumbling idiot pretending to be a gentleman. He took her _elbow_, and she was staring at his hand on her in surprise because of it. Flushing, Brady's smile fell away and he coughed in embarrassment.

"Brady—" Nikki started to say, but he just grunted and stepped around her. She was going to open her mouth and tell him exactly what he knew was coming, what anyone in her position would say. She'd open her mouth, and that would be the official end of something that he had wanted and had screwed up by being exactly who he was, so Brady kept on walking.

He wasn't ready to hear it yet.

* * *

><p>Tucked in the far back corner of the classroom, Nikki rolled her pencil tip on the piece of paper in front of her. She was only half paying attention to the voices of the students pouring into the front of the large room, or the directions from their history teacher. Class didn't start for another minute and a half, so whatever the teacher was already saying, Nikki wasn't too worried about it. This was the first day of school. It wasn't like there was too much she could miss.<p>

At Nikki's right side, Skylar was sprawled in her seat, looking dreadfully bored even though the day wasn't even halfway over yet.

"You know, I'm sure summer in La Push wasn't nearly as fun as summer in Florida, but it was a _hell_ of a lot more interesting than this," Skylar lamented, staring up at the ceiling. "Why did we want to be in high school again?"

"I wanted to be here for the increased educational experience," Dawn said absently from in front of Skylar. "And Nikki and I wanted to be here because at least the high school is big enough to support a basketball team. I think you're here for the food."

"I like food," Skylar admitted to the ceiling, causing Dawn to chuckle and Nikki to grin over at her friend.

With flawless coppery skin and shimmering black hair that fell nearly to her waist, Skylar was beautiful enough to have given even Callie Jennings and Leah Clearwater a run for their money. At least, if Skylar could ever remember to get out of bed in time to brush that hair, or wear clothes that hadn't been crumpled up in a ball under her bed for the past week. One of Nikki's best friends since elementary grades, a closet slacker and a well-known slob of the highest degree, Skylar had always reminded Nikki of a kitten that had been raised by a dog: rumpled and affectionate and completely missing her calling.

In the seat in front of Skylar's, Dawn Ateara was the other girl's total opposite. Everything about Dawn was meticulous, from her fingernail polish to the pre-labeled subject dividers in her notebook. Maybe it was too much time spent with her great uncle, old Quil Ateara, but Dawn had been born with a plan and that plan was La Push. Nikki was proud of her people, but never had Nikki met anyone as fiercely territorial of their heritage as Dawn was. Being Quileute wasn't just in her blood, it was in her heart and her soul and every last inch of her. Nikki had spent more afternoons than she could count listening as Dawn poured over every written record of their history that she could get her hands on, or watching Dawn bother her cousin Quil, who had somehow been allowed access to the Council's more private records.

Dawn was immensely proud of being one of the very few people on the rez that was actually proficient in their native tongue.

Determined to follow in the footsteps of Sue Clearwater, Dawn had already started planning what she would study in college, what would be the most beneficiary to her people, and exactly how long it would take before she could be allowed on the Tribal Council. Nikki was pretty sure that if Dawn knew the truth about what was going on in La Push, once the shock passed, Dawn would start studying lupine veterinary practices and trying to offer the Pack raw meat.

"Why are there so many people in here?" Nikki suddenly asked, looking around. At a school this size, she was most likely going to recognize everyone, but not all of these students were in her grade.

"It's a combined history class with the juniors," Dawn told Skylar, and suddenly Nikki paled as she sat up straighter in her seat. Juniors? Oh hell...That meant class with Brady, and that was the last thing Nikki wanted. Just seeing him in the halls between every class was bad enough.

"Seriously?" Nikki asked, wide-eyed, and her two best friends gave her matching expressions of sympathy.

Dawn had been organizing her pencils and her backup pencils and her ink pen and her last course, there's no other options and the world's about to end, backup pen. But she paused and shared a look with Skylar. "Don't worry, if he's a jerk, we'll eat him alive and let you listen to him scream," Dawn promised sweetly, and Skylar snickered.

Nikki gave them both a small smile. "Thanks, but no cannibalism, at least not until after lunch period. And he's not a jerk, he's just—"

"A total asshole who never spoke to you again after your date last year? An asshole you pined after so badly this summer that now your best friends want to castrate him?" Dawn suggested, rearranging her pencils again.

Skylar wrinkled her nose and added, "An ignorant piece of shit whose abdominal muscles don't make up for his lack in personality?"

Nikki sighed and shook her head, smiling a little more at her friends' loyalty. "He's not like that, you guys. Just drop it, okay? It doesn't matter."

But it did matter, at least a little. Brady had been Nikki's first major crush, and she had liked him far more than she'd ever openly admitted to. Apparently she didn't have to, because Skylar and Dawn had already known.

Speak of the devil, the bell was about to ring, and only moments before it did, three massive figures pushed into the room. As always Collin Littlesea was the leader of the pack, although it wasn't often that one saw Collin without Brady Jennings at his shoulder. With the loss of Jacob Black, Seth Clearwater, Samantha Carter, and Chancy Hoblin, the two seemed to be missing the better part of their crowd, although they had picked up a third wheel in the form of Nikki's friend Owen. No one in school, with the exception of Nikki, knew why the previously unpopular and rather isolated boy could now be found at the heels of Collin and Brady, but he was there like glue.

Nikki was happy about that, at least. Maybe Owen's phasing had contributing to messing up her and Brady's slowly developing relationship, but it had gained the rawboned youth the group of friends that he had never had. She had always felt bad for Owen, tried to talk to him or partner with him in class so he wouldn't always be alone, but those days were apparently over. Owen had a place now, with Collin and (more importantly) with Brady. Funny, Nikki had never thought that she'd ever be jealous of Owen.

…Okay, seriously. What the _hell_ was Collin wearing?

"Is Collin Littlesea wearing extra skinny jeans?" Dawn whispered, giggling, and out of loyalty to the wolves that protected the reservation, Nikki tried her very best not to burst out laughing. Kim had told her just how good the Pack's hearing was.

Skylar snickered, adding, "Those are skintight! I can see his whole package!" Up front, Collin began to smile triumphantly, at least until Skylar added, "Do you think it's true that he has crabs? Because that's really nasty."

This time Nikki couldn't stop herself, although she tried to duck her face away from Collin's expression of martyrdom. Brady coughed, but Nikki thought she caught a hint of sparkle in his eyes before they went back to the flat disinterest that he so often adopted. Nikki shifted in her seat, wondering if he would look at her, but Brady seemed to find the window far more preoccupying.

"Welcome back to class Mr. Jennings, Mr. Littlesea," their history teacher said drolly, ignoring the rawboned wolf that trailed at their heels. "Third time's a charm, don't they say?"

Collin beamed brightly at the history teacher and threw an arm around Brady's shoulders. "Don't worry, Mr. Finnel, we've got this covered. Brady and I'll teach the class and you can just hang out and supervise. Right, Brade?" Brady rolled his eyes, but when Collin slugged him hard in the ribs, Brady stopped staring out the window and turned the teacher's way.

"We'll try not to fuck it up too bad this year," Brady deadpanned, and despite herself Nikki snickered. Regrettably for the Connweller women, their snickers had the unfortunate tendency to turn into snorts, and Nikki found the teacher staring at her balefully as she tried to mask the noise.

"Is something funny, Miss. Connweller?" the teacher asked, eyes narrowed, and Nikki sat up even straighter in her chair, shaking her head vehemently.

"Oh! Oh, ahhh, I mean, no, sir. No. The…ummm…the use of the word 'fuck' is highly inappropriate classroom behavior. Not that Brady has bad classroom behavior…his behavior is…umm…," Nikki continued to babble, not realizing until Dawn squeaked in horror what she was actually saying. Dawn twisted around in her seat and began making cutting motions across her neck.

Skylar, ever the loyal companion, sat up straight and spoke loudly over Nikki, drowning out her words. "What Nikki means is that the use of the word 'fuck' in the classroom is traumatic enough to make her highly uncomfortable, Mr. Finnel. You should probably kick Jennings out for being a dick."

Nikki froze mid-babble, turning wide eyes Skylar's way as the entire classroom turned to look at them both. To Nikki's mortification, Skylar just grinned and locked eyes with an annoyed looking Brady. "What? He is. I mean, it's called a phone, dude. Use it."

"Could you _not_ spill my entire summer's worth of dirt for everyone to hear?" Nikki hissed out of the side of her mouth, trying to kick Skylar, who was happily kicking back.

Dawn, realizing that the cutting motions across her neck were doing no one any good, turned around and raised her hand politely. "Mr. Finnel? I just want to say that the first day of school is a really important time for a student, and it's the best time to make a good impression, and we're all impressionable individuals. So please don't hold it against us that Nikki said 'fuck' and Skylar said 'dick' because we really are good learners," Dawn promised, reaching behind her and trying to smack Skylar's hand away from her mouth. Then Dawn's eyes narrowed, and Nikki groaned loudly, covering up her eyes as her other equally loyal friend stated primly, "But if anyone's interested, I think Brady Jennings is a dee eye cee kay too."

"That spells 'dick', buddy," Collin muttered out of the corner of his mouth to Brady, "In case you couldn't keep up with her."

"Someone kill me now," Nikki whimpered, thumping her forehead on her desk. "Make it stop."

Owen, assumingly out of loyalty to his Packmates, decided then that he should cause some sort of disturbance. It was honorable really, him stuttering too loudly that he needed the pass to the bathroom and flushing when the classroom just snickered at him and Mr. Finnel groaned. Collin let out a deep snarl that made everyone jump and shut up, and Nikki grow pale again.

Only she really understood the threat beneath his tone.

Both Brady and Owen stiffened in response to Collin's warning glare, and Nikki would have noticed that very few of the students were still looking at Owen if she hadn't been one of the ones flinching back beneath Collin's fierce expression. A fierce expression that she was suddenly blocked from as Brady randomly sidestepped in between her and Collin. Nikki had no idea why Collin's anger had been enough to make her want to cringe and hide away from him, but she didn't like feeling that way.

She had always been the tough one in the family, the smart one, the one that could figure stuff out and get stuff done. She was the tomboy that had rarely been uncomfortable around the opposite sex, at least as long as one Mr. Paul Coho in all his delicious bartending glory had been taken out of the equation. But that had been before she had met a boy so rough, so non-verbal, so excessively male that in acting like herself, Nikki still managed to feel like a google-eyed, fluttering sissy around him. It was so far out of Nikki's comfort zone to be flushing every time Brady Jennings looked at her, and the last thing she needed was to be cringing just because his best friend was looking her way.

"Okay, enough," Mr. Finnel decided tiredly, sighing the sigh of one resigned to their fate, even if it was only second period. "Boys, sit. Preferably somewhere as far away from me as possible. There are some seats left over there, next to the equally eloquent young women in the back corner."

Empty seats, meaning the seats in front of Nikki and Dawn and the one to Skylar's right. They were going to be flanked. Owen had already headed down the aisle on Skylar's right, leaving Brady and Collin coming her way.

"Dawn!" Nikki hissed, thumping the seat in front of her pointedly, but Dawn had already taken out her notebook and was readying her pen, determined to get the most out of her educational experience that day.

"Too slow, Connweller," Collin chuckled, dropping himself down in front of Dawn lazily. He turned around and gave the younger girl a sexy smile. "Hey."

Now, for the record, Collin Littlesea was damn good looking, and there was not a single girl in the school that couldn't acknowledge that fact. Sure, he was too much of a pretty boy for Nikki's tastes, and she had seen someone even better looking once before, but that didn't mean that she couldn't appreciate the damage he could do with one well-aimed smile. Nikki thought that it was a testament to her friends' loyalty that Dawn sniffed as if Collin smelled badly and proceeded to ignore him, while Skylar flipped him the bird over Dawn's head.

"What did I do?" Collin asked, looking wounded, and Nikki tried to fight off her smile.

"Fraternizing with the enemy," Dawn and Skylar both stated in unison, aiming twin looks of dislike Brady's way. Brady, having no other option, was settling himself down in front of Nikki, and up until that comment, had been giving her a tentative smile. That smile immediately fell as he glared at Nikki's two friends.

"What the hell are your two's problems?" Brady growled, narrowing his eyes, and when neither girl answered him, he muttered lowly. "Nik, your friends are both such _bitches_."

Dawn immediately drew herself up, Nikki's temper flashed and she opened her mouth, and Skylar began carving designs into Brady's skull with her eyes. Fortunately for Brady Collin got there first, chuckling and saying, "Play nice, Brady. And ladies, you _did_ start with the name calling first."

"Hey, we just call it like we see it. If the shoe fits—" Skylar started to say, but Mr. Finnel was looking at her suspiciously, and Nikki quickly interrupted her.

"_Enough_, guys," Nikki hissed beneath her breath. "Dawn, Skylar, leave him alone, it doesn't matter, okay?" She leaned forward so that she was closer to the back of Brady's head. "Brady, they're my _friends_. Insult them again, and I'm spending the rest of the year trying to jam this pencil through your head."

For emphasis Nikki poked the lead tip of said pencil into the nape of his neck. It earned her a soft wordless growl, but Brady did stop glaring at the two girls and proceeded to ignore all of them instead. Collin winked at her over his shoulder, and off to Skylar's right, the briefest smile touched Owen's lips.

As the teacher droned on, Nikki sighed and settled back in her chair, wishing for the hundredth time that she could explain why she would still be interested in a guy that had apparently decided he didn't want to date her. But it was more complicated than just him hurting her feelings and her being wounded enough to let Skylar and Dawn know. Anything involving the Pack had the capacity of being infinitely more complicated than it was with just a regular person.

That still didn't mean he hadn't hurt her feelings when he had refused to talk to her this summer. And that didn't mean that she didn't feel like an idiot for defending him.

Scratching her pencil against the paper in a small doodle, Nikki half listened to the teacher telling them they would be working on several group projects for most of the year. Brady was shifting uncomfortably in front of her, obviously squashed in the too small desk. His long legs sprawled out to either side on the chair in front of him, and he kept rolling his shoulders and tilting his head to the side, as if trying to work out a kink in his neck.

The tapping of a pencil drew her attention, and Nikki glanced over at Skylar. Nikki's laidback friend had her notebook held up, with the words '_You're staring at him!_' written. Beneath it, Skylar had drawn a pair of goggling eyes and a bunch of hearts with wings and vapid smiling faces. Nikki rolled her eyes but couldn't help her snicker.

"Are we finding something funny again, Miss Connweller?"

Nikki shrank down into her seat as the class all followed the teacher's eyes to her. "Uhhh…" she stammered again, desperately trying to think of something that didn't involve smiley faces. "I was…ahh…."

"I asked her if she would switch seats with me," Brady rumbled unexpectedly, sounding a combination of bored and annoyed. "I told her my ass was falling asleep."

"Vividly descriptive as always, Mr. Jennings," the teacher sighed wearily. "Miss Connweller, under no circumstances are you to let Mr. Jennings have the corner seat. No walls are allowed near his head. Two years of his snoring have been quite enough for me."

The class twittered, and Brady grunted something in reply, but the teacher had already turned back to the lesson. Skylar and Dawn were looking at Nikki with confused faces and Skylar held up a second piece of paper that read '_What the hell?_'

Nikki just shrugged, but she couldn't keep herself from smiling. She leaned forward in her chair and whispered, "Thank you."

He grunted again, but this time the grunt was softer, and he turned his head slightly to acknowledge that she had spoken. Collin turned around and gave her an encouraging look, although what that was supposed to do, Nikki didn't know. It wasn't as if she hadn't tried talking to Brady Jennings. He just didn't seem to have anything he wanted to say back her way. Wishing she was brave enough to do more and feeling the weight of her inexperience with boys pressing on her shoulders, Nikki gave up and shifted back into her seat, returning to her doodling.

She was glad that no one could see that it was a cartoon wolf holding hands with a cartoon basketball on the beach.

* * *

><p>"Wow, man, you really blew Nikki off."<p>

Brady cast an annoyed look Collin's way, stuffing his books in his locker and trying not to slam the door too hard. He hated where his locker was this year, it was too close to where _hers_ had been last year, and it bothered him every time he passed by it. Damn was he glad the day was over, and he could just get out of here already.

"I didn't blow her off, I just didn't have anything to say," Brady countered, irritated that Collin would bring it up with Owen standing right there next to them.

As always, when Nikki was brought up, Owen's body language changed. It shouldn't have pissed Brady off as much as it did, but he had to turn around so that he wasn't looking at the younger wolf. He'd already gotten his ass chewed by Jake twice for treating the pup too roughly, something that Collin's mistakes with Jack had turned into a serious Pack transgression. When it came to the pup, Brady had to just bite his tongue and walk away.

Collin didn't look convinced, although he didn't comment, choosing instead hum noncommittally and smile at a passing freshman.

"Why are you freshman hunting? You're nailing Callie," Brady said moodily, turning the tables on his best friend. He'd been taking shit from Collin about Nikki all day and he was tired of it. "Or has she finished stuffing your balls down your throat yet?"

The dominant wolf sighed and leaned against the next locker over, oblivious to the pimple faced junior who was uncomfortably trying to figure out a way to ask Collin to move. "She didn't come to school today," Collin mumbled, sounding bummed. "I don't think she likes me very much."

"No shit, Callie almost never makes it to the first day of school," Brady shook his head. "And no, she doesn't. You should find someone else."

"I hear Nikki Connweller's single," Collin said cheekily, eyes brightening. "Something about her dumbass boyfriend blowing her off all summer for…wait, _why_ did her dumbass boyfriend blow her off all summer again?"

Brady couldn't help the snarl that escaped his throat. "Leave it alone, Collin," he said harshly, heading towards the exit. "We weren't even officially dating yet."

"I think it was something about him being a big pile of chicken shit," Collin continued blithely. "Or maybe he lost his balls in an unfortunate skinny jean incident."

"Collin, I'm letting Jake know it time for another organized inter-Pack fight," Brady informed him, voice lowering dangerously. "I'm planning on kicking your ass where everyone can watch. Cassie and your mom are my ring girls."

Collin gave Brady an annoyed look as they headed for the door, Owen glancing sympathetically at Pimple, who only now could get to his locker. "Okay, dude, that's just wrong…"

"Brady, can I talk to you?"

At the sound of her voice, Brady's feet slowed of their own accord. He shot Collin a look, but the other wolf just shrugged and kicked his head backwards towards the girl behind them. And, because he was Collin and could be a manipulative bastard when he wanted to be, Collin said the one thing that would without a doubt make Brady stop, no matter how Brady felt about the girl. "She's Kim's sister, Brady."

Sonofabitch. The exit to the school had been so close, too.

Brady eyed it longingly before sighing and turning around. Nikki was standing a few feet away from him, her left arm at her side and her right arm horizontal across her stomach, as if she felt sick just being that close to him. The wolf stiffened, feeling himself closing down, shutting her and whatever words she might decide to say far away. Just because he'd let her under his skin once didn't mean she had to stay there. Brady crossed his arms over his chest, keeping his eyes focused on the lockers behind her shoulder.

"Uhhh, we'll just let you two be alone," Collin decidedly, looking back and forth between the pair of them before gesturing at Owen to follow him outside. Like always, Owen immediately fell into place at Collin's heels, nearly as obedient as their most submissive wolf Jack had been. _Was_. How obedient Jack still was, because they'd know if something had happened, even if no one had yet heard from him.

Brady grunted in acknowledgement and waited, ignoring the students moving around him as they headed outside the building. Two sophomore girls, those snarky friends of Nikki's, cast her furtive glances as they hurried past. The girl in front of Brady had her eyes fixed on the center of his chest, her body language giving off the impression that she would rather be anywhere else than there right now.

Yeah. He felt about the same way too.

Brady began to grow impatient and started to turn on his heel, but Nikki's hand grabbed his arm too quickly for him to leave. It always surprised him how fast she was, for a normal human.

"Walk me home?" Nikki asked him, but her eyes showed that she expected him to say no. And a part of Brady wanted to say no, but a really big part of him was utterly fixated on how good she smelled, and how in just a few months she had managed to look even better than she had the last time he'd seen her. That and she was _Kim's_ sister. Kim, who he'd walk through hell and back for, and Kim had asked him to try to be nicer to people this year, especially people that weren't Pack. To try and be a teenager and find the normalcy that he could while it was still available to him. Kim and Jared worried about him, worried about how isolated he had become.

So Brady simply grunted and stepped backwards, opening the door and holding it, waiting for the short, dark haired girl to go through first.

His eyes automatically slid over her backside as she did, and as he followed her down the front entrance steps, Brady sighed. She'd been a little scrawny last year, tomboy that she was, but Nikki had filled out this summer. She even had a little belly on her now that Brady found cute.

No, not cute. If he wanted to keep her at arm's length, he couldn't find things cute about her.

Nikki shifted her book bag on her shoulder and gave him a tentative smile, and Brady grunted, twisted his head so that he wouldn't have to see those thick lashes framing those pretty eyes. Shit, he was already caving. Angry at himself, Brady put more distance between them as they headed down the street towards the Connweller home, ignoring the soft drizzle that had started to fall from puffy grey clouds overhead. They walked for a while, silent and awkward, with Brady splitting his attention between not looking at her and paying attention to his surroundings. He'd learned the hard way that even a wolf on the rez needed to always keep their guard up.

"You're not going to talk to me at all, are you?" Nikki finally said, sounding sad. Brady looked over at her against his better judgment and saw that her head was hanging as she walked, her feet unconsciously kicking at the gravel on the ground.

"The last thing you said was that you needed some time to think," Brady reminded her, trying to keep his voice from sounding angry. He was angry, but not at her. Not really. Brady was just disappointed that being with her hadn't gone better. He'd really wanted it to go better, and he was angry at himself for thinking it had been a good idea to even try in the first place.

"That wasn't because of you, Brady," Nikki told him quietly. "And…it was…it was just complicated."

Brady snorted, shaking his head. She had no idea how complicated things could get. No fucking idea.

Nikki must have misinterpreted his snort for derision, and she frowned. "Brady, I _tried_ to call you and apologize," the sophomore started to say, but Brady didn't want to hear her talking about it anymore. He didn't want to think about the whole Pack shit right now, he just wanted to be glad he had a day off patrol and leave it at that. Nikki was still talking, and Brady cut her off.

"Listen, I just want to walk you home, okay?" Brady snapped, the words rolling off his tongue without thinking.

Nikki blinked, and the scent of embarrassed hurt filled the air. "I'm sorry I bothered you, Brady. But trust me, I can walk my own ass home," she said, her eyes flashing with wounded pride as she left him where he stood.

Brady groaned, his nostrils flaring. Like Kim, the scent of Nikki's shame was particularly bad, and he hated it. Brady hated anyone feeling that way, he had spent too much of his own life knowing exactly what that smell felt like. And his damn feet were already moving, following after her as she strode away.

Apparently Brady's wingman hadn't thought he could handle this, because there was a rustling in the woods near his right, accompanying a familiar scent. "Way to go, dumbass," Collin muttered from his cover. "Maybe not talking _did_ work out better for you. Five bucks you make her cry."

Brady growled and flipped off that general direction as he jogged to catch up with her. "Shit…Nik, I didn't mean it like that," Brady growled in frustration when he reached her. "Nikki, stop."

Brady reached for her arm to pull her around, but he used too much strength and accidentally pulled the sophomore all the way to his chest. Her breasts were pressed against his lower ribcage, her hips against his upper thighs, and Brady wondered why he wasn't backing up. Maybe because it had been a while since he'd had a girl pressed up against him. Maybe because he'd spent the summer trying to get the image of _this_ girl pressed up against him out of his head.

"I just wanted to apologize," Nikki said into his chest, and Brady heard a soft little sniff. She _was_ crying. Oh hell, Jared was going to kill him for making Kim's little sister cry. "I was really pissed at Kim for lying to me for so long, and I understand why she had to, but it really upset me. I was just really thrown by everything, and then I felt really bad. I didn't want you to think I didn't want to talk to you or be around you because of the wolf thing. I felt like I was so mean to you, Brady, and I hated the fact I couldn't apologize to you."

He wasn't good with women. He really wasn't good with crying ones. At least she was trying to contain hers, wiping them before they hit her cheeks. If Nikki had been bawling, Brady would have probably packed up, cut his losses, and found somewhere else to hide for the next twenty years. Jared would hunt him down and _murder_ him.

"Whatever," Brady grunted, his voice rough as his hands tried to decide where they should go. "It wasn't the first porch I've been kicked off of before."

Brady's hands settled on his pockets. Not that stuffing one's hands in one's pockets was the best way at comforting crying girls, but Brady was working with what he had available at the moment.

"Shit, you're an idiot," the Collin whispered, almost loudly enough that the human should have been able to hear. "Even Paul does better than that. You know you owe me five bucks, right?"

Brady shot a baleful look at the woods. Seriously, how hard was it for Collin to just leave him alone?

"Wow, I feel so stupid," Nikki was saying, pulling her head back and wiping her eyes, gathering herself far more quickly than Brady had expected. Thank goodness. Thank the ancestors. Thank the remaining Lunchable lost in the depths of Brady's book bag. "You probably think I'm a freak for crying, huh? Anyways, if I made you feel bad, I'm really sorry, Brady. I never meant to."

To be honest, Brady was a little dumbstruck. He was used to being the one that screwed up, the one that took the blame, and he wasn't used to getting apologized to. Brady didn't think that she had done anything worth apologizing…she had wanted out and he didn't blame her. It had sucked, but that was just how shit went down. At least she wasn't crying anymore.

He should probably say something. He should probably do something.

…Nothing. He had nothing.

"Tell her you're sorry too," Collin hissed from the scant cover of a nearby bush, and Brady growled in annoyance.

"I didn't _do_ anything," Brady hissed back as softly as he could, and Nikki looked at him, her eyes reflecting hurt again. Damn, she had heard. "Ahh, I mean…uh…forget it. It doesn't matter. It's all cool."

Nikki nodded, but that scent of hurt stayed in her eyes as she stepped backwards. "Okay. Umm, okay. So we're good?"

"That's what I said, didn't I?" Brady grumped, causing Collin to sigh heavily from the bushes.

"Wow, dude, you _suck_ with girls."

This time Brady just turned to the woods and snapped his teeth. "She's gonna think I'm an even bigger asshole than I am, so could you just please _shut up_ already and _go away_?" There was silence and then the sound of soft laughter, definitely female laughter. Brady flushed and turned to see Nikki peering into the woods around his shoulder.

"Who's out there?" she asked curiously. "It's not Jared, is it?"

Brady shook his head and rolled his eyes. "No, it's Collin." Suddenly Brady smirked viciously. "By the way, let your friends know that he has a little dick, and that's why he wears such tight pants. He's trying to make it look bigger."

The girl behind him sniggered at that, and there was an offended rustle of foliage, followed by the telltale crack of bones reshaping. Then Collin stuck the end of his muzzle out of the brushes, tongue lolling out as he gave Nikki and Brady a canine grin. Then the grey wolf shifted back into the cover of the foliage, slipping away before anyone else coming down the street could see.

"He _never_ gets caught doing _any_ of that sh—stuff," Brady grumbled, shaking his head and Nikki smiled at him shyly.

They stood there awkwardly for a minute, and then Nikki shifted her book bag onto her other shoulder. "Do you want to hang out?" she asked eventually, those pretty eyes gazing up at him hopefully, and Brady felt it happen again. That sliding feeling, as if he was losing track of where he had been standing just a moment ago, and despite himself, Brady grunted an affirmative.

"Ummm, we could go to my house…" she offered, and Brady winced.

"Your dad home right now?" he asked, and Nikki nodded.

Jed Connweller was a nice man, at least he had been the times Jared and Kim had dragged Brady over to the Connweller home for family dinners or holidays. But there was a difference between being that pathetic kid that Jed's daughter and potential son-in-law were always hauling around with them, and being the one that came home with Jed's other and much younger daughter. And since Jed was a writer, if not a particularly good one, more often than not he was always at home.

"We could go to the beach and walk around," Nikki murmured, but even as she said it, she was eyeing the skies above them. "Which would be pretty stupid because it's going to start pouring soon."

Brady glanced upwards and crooked an eyebrow at her. "You know that for sure?" he asked, his voice lightly teasing, because while there were clouds in the sky, they didn't look heavy enough to start raining hard.

Nikki smirked cockily and stuck a thumb towards her chest. "Hey, the Connwellers are direct descendants of some of the most famous shaman of our tribe. If I say it's going to rain, mister, then you'd better strap your boots on."

"Sure," Brady chuckled, stuffing his hands into his pockets. He decided that it probably wasn't a good idea to tell her that the most famous shaman of the tribe was currently traipsing around Europe chasing after vampires right now, and if she was a direct descendant of him, then things had just gotten a little weirder. "Come on, let's raid Collin's place," he told her with a smirk. "He's got his own TV, and the moron owes me."

Of course, Jared and Kim's place was closer, but there was no way in hell he was taking her there. It only took a few minutes to get to the Littlesea residence, and they didn't say anything, but at least the silence was a little less awkward.

"Will his parents care?" Nikki asked as Brady hustled her past his parent's home and to the fence surrounding Collin's backyard. Brady could remember everything about the day they put that fence up. It was the day they decided to protect their only son by keeping more of the world at bay, including their unfortunate luck in neighbors and a thirteen year old kid that was still hopping the fence when their backs were turned.

"They both work in Forks and won't be home for a while," Brady grunted, taking Nikki's bag and getting ready to hoist her over the fence. But she surprised him by eyeing the six foot wooden privacy fence before jumping up and catching the top edge. She hung there for a moment before planting her feet on the boards and hauling herself over the fence. The actual process of her climb was less graceful than Brady's easy swinging of himself over, but he was grinning when she dropped down to her feet and brushed her hands off.

"This isn't your first breaking and entering, is it?" Brady teased her as she straightened her twisted t-shirt, and Nikki snickered.

"I plead the fifth," she winked at him as she took her bag back, turning and heading towards the nearest window. She had to go up on her tiptoes to peer inside, and Brady was trying and failing to cover his widening smile as she hummed her own sneaky theme music. She moved onto the next window, which had been left open. "So which one are we breaking into?" Nikki asked, trying to stretch up on her toes and see inside, unaware of Brady as he padded up behind her.

Okay, so maybe he was deliberately walking silently, but it was worth it hearing her yelp in surprise when he put his hands on her waist and hoisted her up to window height was completely worth it. A second yelp accompanied her scrambling through the window and thumping into something. "Brady, there's a desk here! My ass just got up close and personal with a stapler."

Brady chuckled and hauled himself up after her. As always, there was a desk strategically positioned in front of the window, as if that was enough to keep wanted personages in and unwanted personages out. "If you see a girl limping at school, best bet is she got the same," the wolf told the young woman, who had climbed off the desk and was now peering around in interest, a stapler in her hand.

His words seemed to sink in and she wrinkled her nose. "Eww. Only Collin would have a skanky stapler," she muttered.

Amused, the wolf locked Collin's bedroom door before making himself comfortable, like he always had since Brady had been a little kid. It didn't occur to Brady that he had taken her to one of his refuges, at least, not until he had settled down backwards in Collin's desk chair, his arms crossed on the backrest. Looking as if she didn't know where to sit, Nikki finally settled for the edge of Collin's bed, her body language saying that she was nervous.

"He won't mind we're here," Brady promised her, absently rotating in the swiveling chair. "Collin's pretty cool about his stuff."

Nikki nodded, but she still looked nervous and her eyes kept darting his way. They were red-rimmed from her crying earlier, and Brady wished he knew what to say to her to make her feel better. The best he could come up with was, "Want to watch television?"

Even as the words came out of his mouth, Brady winced, deciding that he was an idiot. But Nikki just smiled shyly and nodded, scooting backwards so that she could recline more comfortable against the headboard. "Yeah, that sounds good."

Brady kicked on the television and then handed the remote to her, causing the girl to smile a little more.

"What do you want to watch?" she asked, and Brady shrugged. He didn't care as long as she didn't tear up on him again. He wasn't even paying attention to what she turned on. Instead Brady was thinking, trying to decide on what to say. They were ten minutes of awkward silence into an episode of Oprah when Brady suddenly scooted the chair closer to the side of the bed Nikki was sitting on.

"You shouldn't have apologized to me," he mumbled, causing her to turn and look at him in surprise. Flushing slightly under her attention, Brady shrugged again. "It's not your fault that any of that sh—that any of it happened. I get why it pissed you off. I'm _still_ pissed off about it, that I have to lie to everyone all the time, and I've been phasing since I was thirteen. At least you didn't start screaming and totally freak out on me when everyone phased that day. That would have really sucked."

Nikki had the grace to look guilty and Brady raised an eyebrow. "I think you didn't start screaming?" he amended curiously.

The dark haired girl blushed and then sighed. "Okay, yeah, I kind of freaked later," Nikki admitted. "But at least I did so privately, after I got home that night. There…ahh…maybe have been some screaming when I was in the shower. My mom wanted to know what I was upset about and I told her it was a spider," Nikki added, flashing him a grin. Then her smile fell and she pulled her knees up to her chest. "I never did thank you for protecting me back then. With Owen and Callie both phasing. That's the right word, right?"

He nodded, shifting uncomfortably as he rested his chin on his arms. "Yeah, that's what we call it. Sounds better than bursting into horse sized balls of fur," Brady added sarcastically, and Nikki's lips curved.

"No shit, huh?" she chuckled, shaking her head. He noticed her eyes drifting towards him, as if he was distracting her, and Brady's masculine pride couldn't help it. He scooted the chair a little closer and shifted so that his arms flexed more in their folded position. To Brady's sudden and deep satisfaction, her cheeks turned even redder and she looked away, but not before unconsciously licking her lips. And there it was, the scent that all the Pack had learned to recognize immediately, when someone wanted them.

Brady wasn't sure why he twisted the chair so that she couldn't see him smile. Maybe because if she didn't know she was making him feel good, she couldn't find a reason to stop it.

"Do you want to sit with me?" Nikki asked tentatively, nervously playing with the television control in her lap. She scooted over and smiled hopefully at him. "There's room."

No, he probably shouldn't. He was trying to keep away from her, wasn't he? It was better that way, not having to deal with putting himself out there for someone to fuck with him. But she smelled good, faintly of one of those perfumes that her friend was wearing today, and of green apple shampoo. Nikki was looking at him, and despite himself, Brady felt himself start to cave again. Maybe he was pathetic, but he liked seeing Nikki Connweller smile, and he liked it even more when he was the cause of that smile. If sitting next to a pretty girl that he had wanted to sit next to all summer made that girl smile, then Brady was going to have to grow a pair and do it.

He was going to do it.

He should probably do it soon, before she got her feelings hurt.

…And her smile was falling. Damn, why was it so hard to just do what he was _supposed_ to, what he _wanted_ to do, when he wanted to do it? Cursing at himself silently, Brady rose to his feet and dropped down onto the bed next to her, stretched out more than Nikki had been. He crossed his arms, and then uncrossed them. He folded them behind his head and put them back down. He rested them at his sides, his fingers close to her jean clad leg. He re-crossed them again. Finally Brady gave up and looked over at the girl next to him.

"We're okay, right?" he asked her, and Nikki nodded, that shy look back on her face. "Good," Brady grunted, and he draped his arm over her shoulders. She stiffened in surprise, but then a smile grew on her face, and she relaxed beneath the weight of his arm, leaning into his shoulder.

There was something about her that he liked. Maybe it was that when he was around her, she always seemed like she really wanted him there, that things were better just from him, Brady Jennings, having his arm around her. Maybe it was that she rolled her eyes and declared Oprah boring and turned to The Simpsons instead, moving so that she cuddled up more closely to his side. A girl who knew he was a shape shifter, not really even human, and who still liked touching him anyways. Maybe he should hold her hand, or ask her out dinner, or do something…

Nothing. Again, he had freaking _nothing_.

Wait, yes, he had something…No. No, thumb war would break her hand and that was bad. He was back at nothing. Damn.

"Brady?"

At her question, Brady pulled himself back into the present. "Hmm?"

She must have been a bad at judging the opposite sex as he was, because Nikki asked him, "Brady, are we just friends now? Or is it like last year? Are we still…I mean, we really weren't anything, but it seemed like we were kind of starting…something…"

Funny how it was easier to answer when he had his face pressed against her hair, and his hand resting on her stomach, slowly getting drunk on apples and the soft give of her flesh. "Yup."

"Yup to which one?" Nikki wondered, her face scrunching in confusion, and Brady felt a slow, easy smile curling his lips. Yeah, she was cute. Not that he'd ever let any of the guys hear him use that phrase. _Ever_. Brady never had been good with words, but it seemed like the right thing to do, taking the television controller and turning it off.

The Simpsons was all fine and good, but Brady had some hardcore hand holding to do, instead.

* * *

><p>Nikki hadn't held very many boys' hands, but she was sure that out of all of them, Brady was the only one who could have made it into a competitive sport. Fingers laced, palm to palm, the wolf had held her hand as if he had something to prove, with a look of such intense concentration and determination on his face that Nikki couldn't help but snigger at the seriousness of it all. Being the competitive type herself, Nikki had held his hand right back, given that all she had, and she was pretty sure that if she hadn't come out the winner, she was a close second place.<p>

The post-hand holding tickling was much less aggressive, something the young woman appreciated as his fingers reduced her into a giggling mess once again.

"That really isn't fair, you know," Nikki laughed breathlessly at the smirking wolf as she fell backward onto Collin's now rumpled bed. "You're not ticklish at all."

Brady shifted onto his back, arm above her head before dropping down around her shoulders. "It sucks to be this awesome," he decided with a lazy smirk, and Nikki playful flipped him off. They relaxed like that for a while, and it was clear that Brady wasn't exactly the talking type. So instead she lay quietly against him, appreciating the fact that he was nice and warm, and that his thumb was still moving over her wrist in a slow circular motion. Nikki wasn't aware that she was watching him until he paused mid-circle, looking over at her with those dark eyes.

"Is that bothering you?" Brady asked her, his voice causing his ribcage to rumble, and Nikki bit her lip with a shy smile, dropping her gaze.

"I like it," she admitted, feeling her cheeks flush, and after a moment's pause, Brady started rubbing her wrist again. This time Nikki was hyper-aware of the wolf next to her, and she felt her heart start beating faster. He really was so very attractive. Nikki wasn't sure what it was about her that had caught Brady's attention, but she was glad she had caught it. Just because there was a reason behind those layers of muscle didn't make them any less sexy, and when she shifted so that her nose was closer to his side, he smelled really good. Like soap and a subtle earthy tone, and beneath that something intrinsically masculine that she couldn't describe. Risking humiliating herself, Nikki inhaled, letting the scent that was Brady play around her senses.

When she met his eyes again, she realized that he had been watching her. He'd seen her sniff him.

Damn.

"Uhh, that was weird, huh?" Nikki decided, her face instantly heating. "Umm, I'll refrain from—"

He cut her off by shifting so that he was leaning over her, although Brady did so slowly, as if not wanting to startle her. With one arm still on the bed over her head, the handsome wolf touched her cheek with the back of his fingers, a light brushing touch.

"It's fine," he told her with that gruff voice that always made her wonder if there was more behind his curt words, more that he wasn't saying. But if it was fine to smell him, then maybe it would be fine to reach up and put her hand on his shoulder.

Brady stiffened, but then his muscles began to relax and he shifted into the contact. Tentatively Nikki ran her hand down his arm, feeling the soft fabric of his shirt give way to deeply tanned skin. Even his flesh was rough, as if he could have benefitted from drowning himself in lotion the way that Dawn always did, Nikki still tightened her grip as she reached his leather clad wrist, close to her jaw. Inhaling again, Nikki closed her eyes, leaning into the touch against her cheek and hoping that Brady was going to kiss her.

He was.

Breath ghosted across her lips, a hesitation, as if Brady was thinking his actions through first. Then his lips brushed over hers, a slow sliding motion that made Nikki's heart skip a beat, as if she had been running a sprint and had stopped too suddenly. She was still trying to catch up when he pulled away, looking down at her questioningly.

"It this okay?" Brady asked, his voice even softer, as if he was worried, and Nikki cleared her throat and shook her head.

"Nope," she told him, her lips curving into a smile. "You stopped."

It took him a moment to understand her teasing, but then Brady chuckled, a deep warm sound that sent a curl through her toes. "I can hear your heart racing," he explained, and to her pleased embarrassment, Brady tipped his head so that his ear was almost pressed against the rise of her breast. "Sounds like little hamster feet in one of those ball things."

Nikki grinned at that, not aware that her fingers were running back up his arm and that her touch was bringing a brightness to his normally flat, angry eyes. "Hamster feet? If I start rolling away, you can't blame me," she snickered.

"Nope," Brady drawled sexily, still in the exact same position as before, but now with his body suddenly much closer than before. Had she been tugging at him? Maybe, because her fingers were digging into the muscles of his shoulder now, and her other hand had somehow drifted to the belt loops of his jeans, her index finger hooking through next to his belt.

"Opps," Nikki decided, not particularly meaning it, and then Brady was kissing her again. This time was better, because this time he didn't seem to need to think about it first.

She wasn't very good at kissing, and Nikki knew that. The fifteen year old hadn't had very much practice, but Brady was a little out of practice too, if the wetness on her mouth was any indication. He muttered sorry when he broke their contact to wipe his mouth, it becoming obvious that one of them was going to need to. Nikki just smiled shyly and did the same. Hesitantly she reached for him again, and Brady seemed more than willing to dip his head back to hers.

His hands stayed near her head and shoulders, drifting only to tug at a strand of her dark hair before returning to her face. To be honest, Nikki would have been more than okay with his hands moving to at least some of her PG rated parts, but she was far too embarrassed to even think about asking. It was bad enough that he seemed content with the distance between them, when she very much wanted to feel his weight against her own.

Confused with how quickly her lust was rising, Nikki accidently went left with her head when she should have gone right, ending up squashing her nose unattractively into Brady's. For one thing, oww. Even a wolf's _nose_ was harder than the standard nose. And two, could she make her inexperience any clearer? No, Connweller, no she could not.

"Oh crap, I'm so sorry," she whispered, blushing again as Brady pulled back and wrinkled his nose. Then he sneezed. Wetly. All over her.

Eww.

"Dammit," Brady groaned, the humiliated wolf hauling himself off of her faster than she could blink. "Where the hell are the tissues, Collin, you dumb fu—I mean…_shit_."

The wolf was tearing the bedroom apart trying to find a box of tissues that he seemed certain would be there, tossing clothing and magazines aside without even trying to take care with what he was handling. Suddenly he bent down and pulled out a partial box that had been wedged under Collin's bed. Something opaque and stiff was stuck to the bottom of it, and Nikki stared at it in repulsion.

"Brady? Is that a…?"

Brady tilted the box and saw where his fingers were almost touching the very used looking object of their collective horror. With a curse, Brady tossed the box across the room, the condom deciding that it preferred sticking to the wall now instead of the tissue box. Hanging at eye level, Nikki realized that she was still lying in Collin's bed, probably in the exact same place said object had been used.

"Brady, we were…and the bed…and the nasty!" Nikki cried, scrambling to get off the bedding with the least amount of blanket to skin contact as possible. "Oh, the nasty! Your friend …he's…._ewww_!"

Nikki didn't realize that she was jumping up and down as much as she was, but then she stared at Brady, eyes wide and dismayed. Suddenly Nikki made a grab for the bottle of sanitizer that was inexplicably beside the bed as well.

"Is it true, the whole crab thing?" she whimpered, globbing the clear lotion on her hands and arms. "Cause I always thought that was just a rumor, but he's got the nasty, and oh my god, it's still hanging there! He has crabs and I was in his _bed_. They're going to be in my hair, and I'm going to have to shave it all off, aren't I? Oh my god, my mom is going to kill me if Collin gave me secondhand crabs! Why _the hell_ are you laughing?"

Sure enough, the wolf was standing there, laughing his ass off. With a growl, Nikki stamped her foot and snarled, "What are you laughing at?"

"What the hell are secondhand crabs?" Brady countered, grinning widely.

"Secondhand crabs means that he gave them to me, instead of my boyfriend giving them to me, because firsthand crabs would be if you—I mean—not that you are—not that you want—I mean, well, if you wanted to be—" Nikki trailed off, realizing what she had said, but instead of getting freaked, the handsome young wolf in front of her just stepped closer, his eyes seeming to light up more than they had all day.

Brady wiped a glob of sanitizer off of her arm and then smirked, scraping it off on Collin's desk before resting his large hands firmly on her hips. "Your boyfriend, huh?" he asked, and over the stinging scent of sanitizer, that masculine smell that was Brady came back again.

Blushing under his attention, Nikki focused on rubbing in another streak of sanitizer on her already disinfected skin. It worked for a moment, but then his voice was rumbling in her ear.

"I'd be a shitty boyfriend, Nik," he said uncertainly. "I'm…not very good at things. You should probably know that I'll screw it up and piss you off."

Nikki glanced up at him and frowned. "If you go into anything thinking like that, then yeah. You're going to suck at everything." She poked him with one finger in his chest. "I don't want a crappy boyfriend, I want a _good_ one, Brady Jennings. And I like you, so if you can deliver, and you like me too, then I'm in. If not, take the walk of shame, mister."

He stared at her for a moment, and then laughed. "The walk of shame? Out of Collin's bedroom? My dad would have a fucking field day with that one."

The sophomore wrinkled her nose at him, and Brady smirked, but Nikki noticed that he was pulling her in closer. "I'll mess it up, Nikki," Brady finally decided. "I'm sorry, but I know me and that's just how I am. But we can try if you want to, Nik. I don't want to date anyone else," he added in a quieter voice, as if he was admitting something that he didn't want to admit.

Nikki pursed her lips, and when Brady bent down to kiss her, she sighed and wrapped her arms around his neck. This kiss was better, there was no nose smacking. They both went right, and when his hands squeezed her hips, hoisting her up a little higher, Nikki decided that yes. Brady Jennings was just about perfect. Too bad she had to unwind her arms and step back, an expression of regret on her face.

She took his hands in hers and gave them a squeeze. "Hey, Brady?"

"Yeah?" The wolf's brows were narrowing, as if he realized things weren't going the direction he had planned.

"I want better than a shitty boyfriend. I want a good boyfriend," she told him honestly. "I want someone who will call me back when I call him, someone who is nice to my friends even if they annoy him. My dad treats my mom well, and Jared treats my sister well…and…I guess I just don't want to settle for less."

He didn't respond, and Nikki realized that she was probably making an ass of herself, but she kept on going. "Please don't be mad, it's not because of the wolf thing, I promise. I just want to be treated well. Hanging out is fun, and the kissing is really nice, but…but you kind of hurt my feelings this summer. I thought you didn't care enough to call me back."

Taking a deep breath, Nikki exhaled, and looked up at him. "I really do like you, Brady. I don't want to date anyone else either."

Brady had grown quiet, and Nikki wasn't necessarily surprised when he pulled his hands away. He didn't say anything, didn't tell her that he had cared, didn't try to explain himself or make her feel better. Instead he just nodded and went to the door, holding it open for her, muttering something about her going through the front and him locking up and sneaking back out the window. Apparently their afternoon together was done.

Disappointed and somewhat embarrassed, Nikki picked up her book bag and headed out of the house, trying to ignore the attractive young man that followed her. Oh well. She and Brady probably wouldn't have worked out anyways. Maybe her friends were right and she was just being blind and stupid. She'd apologized and he'd just grunted at her. Well, screw that. And if he thought he'd be making out with her again, screw that too.

The rain was pouring when she stepped outside. Nikki Connweller decided that was more than fitting.

* * *

><p>There had been a time in his life when no one asked Brady Jennings how his day had been. There had been a time when he had snuck into his house through the back door and tried to make himself as small as possible, hoping that no one would even notice that he was there. It still struck him as strange that Jared always smiled at him when Brady slipped through their back door. And on the days that Brady forgot himself and wandered through the front, Jared would always smile just a little more.<p>

It was late, Brady had spent the evening just running, letting the heavy weight of his Alpha's presence soothe and block his mind. Jake had a way of slowing Brady's thoughts, blocking them away from not just the other wolves but from himself as well. Sometimes when he was thinking too hard, dealing with too much, Jake helped him shut down completely just to ease the stress on his heart and his mind. But tonight he'd simply been running and thinking about a girl.

A girl that wanted something good, but had wanted that something good from _him_. Nikki wanted better than a shitty boyfriend. Not better _than_ him, just better than what he was offering her _from_ him.

Damn if that girl wasn't still under his skin.

"Hey kid," Jared's voice spoke up from the living room as Brady slipped through the back door and down the hallway.

"Hey."

Hey, because they hadn't locked him out. Hey, because the apartment was filled with the scent of food and warmth and two people that mattered far more to Brady than he was comfortable with. Hey, because he didn't want to be anywhere else out there right now. He really would rather be in here.

Kim had apparently tried to stay up for him, and when he saw her curled up and asleep on the end of his couch, Brady immediately felt badly. "She didn't have to wait," Brady mumbled to the older wolf on the living room floor.

"She wanted to know how your first day was," Jared yawned, turning his face from the television to see Brady better. "You didn't hear me phase in earlier to check on you. I told her you were just out running."

Brady grunted in acknowledgement. He always made sure to acknowledge Jared, and Brady grew upset if he didn't do it quickly enough. If the older wolf on the floor noticed that particular behavior, he never said anything. Jared tended to stretch out on the carpet when he was tired, one of the many things that Brady had subconsciously catalogued so that he could gauge Jared's mood. He always had to know Jared's mood. Brady didn't care if it was a good mood or a bad one, he just had to know.

He hated not being able to anticipate what kind of mood was coming at him.

Right now was easy to decipher. Jared was tired, but he was watching old sitcoms, which meant he was contentedly so. The oven light was on and the setting on warm, meaning that they had kept dinner for him. Kim's Minnie Mouse mug was on the coffee table with a spoon sticking out of it. She liked eating cereal at night from a mug, something Jed Connweller did when he was writing late at night, so she had felt nostalgic that evening. Brady should have come home sooner.

Not home. Here. Brady should have come _here_ sooner. Shit. He had to stop thinking like this.

"Dinner's in the oven," Jared said with another yawn, and Brady saw Kim shift on the couch, roused by the voices. She was already in her pajamas, and Brady went over to her, leaning over the back of the couch.

Kim smiled sleepily up at him, and Brady gave her a fond smile. "Won my money back," he told her, ruffling her hair and chuckling when she drowsily swatted at his hands.

"We made you 'tatoes," Kim mumbled, and on the floor, Jared chuckled at her sleep-slurred words. Mashed potatoes were Brady's favorite, even if they were just flakes from a box that the young wolf had poured water on and ate cold.

Brady grinned, bending down so that his chin was resting on his arms. "I tried to do what you said. I think I messed it up, but I tried. I don't think people noticed."

"People are stupid," Kim declared loyally, reaching her arms up and hugging him around the neck. Brady didn't actively hug her back, but he kept his head bent down so she could reach, and he stayed there patiently until she let him go. "G'night, Brady."

"Night," he smiled, then smiled as Kim went over to say good night to Jared before wandering off to bed. He knew that Kim slept like a rock, but Brady still tried to make himself as quiet as he could, opening and closing everything carefully as he got out some silverware and a cup, pouring himself a glass of water and getting his plate out of the oven.

Mashed potatoes and a chunk of roast beef nearly the size of his fist. Best people _ever_.

Groaning happily, Brady dropped down into a kitchen chair and set into his food with a restraint only practiced by wolves that were determined to enjoy every single bite of what was in front of them. The television was a soft backdrop of noise, softer still because Jared turned it down.

"So, how was it?" the older wolf asked. "Your first day back?"

It was a lot of things. It was Mrs. Littlesea and it was Collin and it was turkey and cheese. It was pretty eyes, and two girls that annoyed him immensely, and fucking _Owen_. It was kisses and condoms and confusion and roast beef. It just was. What the hell was he supposed to say?

"Fine," Brady grunted, and at the silence he sighed, feeling ridiculous as he added a little grumpily, "How was _your_ day?"

Jared chuckled from the floor, a low rumbling sound that was soothing to Brady's nerves, nerves that hadn't seemed at all frayed. Were they? "It was good, kid. Helped Paul's uncle with that Bayliner he's been fixing up. We're taking it out soon, if you want to go on the first test run."

Brady flushed, glad that Jared couldn't see his face as he dipped it closer to his plate. He was pathetic. He was really fucking pathetic, wasn't he? "Ye—yeah," Brady mumbled. "Yeah, I'll go."

And he'd be fucking _crushed_ if Jared forgot. Because one day it would happen. One day Jared would stop being Jared, and he'd be just like everyone else. One day, but thankfully not yet, and right now was better than it would be one day.

A girl's voice went through his head, and Brady found himself chewing slower. Another bite of mashed potatoes. One more. Scraping the last bits off the plate and licking his fork clean. Jared moving about the kitchen, drinking out of the orange juice container because he didn't wear lipstick, so it was perfectly fine in his mind.

"Hey Jared?" Brady asked, "How exactly do you treat a girl 'well'?"

A slight smile from the older wolf and a hand resting briefly on Brady's shoulder, fingers squeezing. "This is about Nikki, isn't it?" Jared said kindly, and without a hint of ridicule in his eyes. Jared never did know how much that shit fucked with him.

"I think I may have messed up," Brady admitted gruffly, poking at nothing at his plate. Then because life was infinitely better in an infinite number of ways, the empty plate beneath his fork became a wedge of peach pie. A staple in the house now because it had been Shane Qahla's favorite.

Jared might have had his own problems, but as he settled into the opposite chair from Brady, that expression of calm acceptance was on his face. That expression that had always made Brady so damn angry when he had been younger. The expression that Brady now prayed daily would never slide away.

"Why don't you start from the beginning, kid," Jared said, casually tucking into his own piece of pie, as if sitting here, eating and talking was not at all strange.

Nothing lasted forever, and Brady Jennings _knew_ that. He knew it. But sometimes…sometimes it was easy to forget. So Brady took a deep breath, swallowed hard, and then sighed softly.

"It started off with Collin being a dick…"


	3. Chapter Two

A/N Yeah, I'm a lot happier with this story now that it's been edited. Like the last chapter, I adjusted the dialogue between Brady and Nikki, and I also changed some of the Nikki/Paul conversation. Sometimes just taking out a few sentences can really change the way a character comes across, and I think this version of Nikki is preferable.

_**Lost Chapters: Brady**_

_Chapter Two_

Brady's nightmares had slowly been getting better.

These days they were usually contained to the couch, the young wolf sometimes growling or crying out, and waking with sweat rolling down his chest and between his shoulder blades. Brady would pant, searching the room with wild, frightened eyes, trying to remember where he was and what was happening. And it would never fail that he'd wake up to Kim on the pillow end of his couch, her arms wrapped around him like he was a child, the imprint saying and doing everything she could to try and pull him out of his dreams.

It had always been easier with Kim, opening up and letting her in wasn't the fight that it was with so many people, and he would roll over and wedge his head between the couch cushion and her hip, too proud to hold on to her in return but clinging to her words of comfort like a lifeline. Brady had lost count of how many nights he'd fallen back asleep to her voice speaking soothingly, telling him stories. Stories of her, stories of Jared, both together and alone. Their hopes and dreams for themselves and for him too. How much they loved him, how they were proud of him. Wedged between a cushion and a hip, his face buried from view and his hands trembling, their unconditional love was a lot easier to accept.

Sometimes Brady was almost able to tell her that he loved them too.

The nightmares had slowly been getting better, but some nights were still bad. And this night, Brady Jennings woke up screaming. It was a hoarse raspy cry, his mind shrieking and his mouth following. He wasn't aware that he had flung himself off of his couch, overturning it and tripping over the armrest. Something shattered, and the voices—

_Too many voices around him, too many voices inside of him, and her eyes meeting his as they…as they…please stop hurting her…_

"Jared, he's going to hurt himself!"

"Kim, get back in the bedroom. He'll hurt _you_—"

_They were hurting her, but they were hurting him too. They were hurting him too, and everyone could see. Everyone could see how weak he was, how powerless, how completely fucking terrified he was. Disgust, they would be disgusted with him, because he was weak, because he couldn't stop this…he couldn't because they were holding him down…please stop…please stop hurting her…stop hurting them both…_

"Come back to me, kid, come back to me. It's over, Brady, you're okay now…"

_No…not that…please stop, she's drowning…she's drowning and he can't get to her… shesdrowningshesdrowningshes drowningshesdrowningshesdrow ning_

More crashing and cracking and yelling. "Jared, just let me—"

"I can't hold him…Kim _go_! Call Jake and tell him to get over—"

"I'm here, I'm here. Shit. Kim,bedroom_, __**now**_. Jared, let him go."

_No. Please no. Pleasenopleasestoppleasenopl easestoppleasenopleasestoppl easenopleasestoppleasenoplea se_—

_**"Brady stop. Brady STOP. Look around and remember where you are."**_

There were few things as humiliating as having one's Alpha have to control them. There was shame in it, in not doing things the way the Alpha wanted in the first place, and shame tore through Brady as that silent part of him made them both obey. As he came back to himself, Brady realized that he was pinned against the refrigerator door, a door that was now severely caved in. Jake was gripping him in a bear hug so tight that he couldn't escape if he had wanted to.

The apartment was trashed. The kitchen table overturned and split, the counter broken off along one edge, and one of the chairs had shattered. Over Jake's shoulder, Brady could see that the living room was even worse. The couch looked like someone had thrown it, Kim's table would need a new piece of glass, and the television…oh no. No no _no_. He'd cracked Jared's television.

Panic hit Brady full force, and his wild eyes swung Jared's way, already cringing as a whine escaped his hoarse throat.

"_**No, look at me**_," Jake commanded, his deep voice rolling through the apartment and Brady had no choice but to obey, keeping his eyes lowered to his Alpha's chin.

The younger wolf inhaled a ragged breath, then another, and another. He was hyperventilating and Brady knew it, but he couldn't stop as the panic attack tore through his body. He was ten again, and Callie had accidentally broken his dad's favorite coffee mug before blaming it on him. And like that day, there was no way Brady could fix this before it was too late. He couldn't move, his Alpha's order had ensured it, so Brady fell apart on his feet, right in front of both of them.

He cried.

Few things were as humiliating as having one's Alpha have to control them. Having Jared see him sob, snot running from his nose as he did so, was one of those things. Real men took their punishments without crying like pathetic little bitches…_real_ men didn't blubber like this—

"Brady, _**look**_ at me," Jake ordered, softer now, and the younger wolf raised his eyes to Jake's nose. He knew Jake wanted more than that from him, but it was as far as he could go. Jake was too dominant, and any dominance Brady might've had, had been stripped from him years ago. He'd broken the television. Jared was going to be so mad at him…

"No, he isn't," Jake promised kindly, loosening his arms from their grip on Brady's own. "It was a nightmare, brother, it wasn't your fault. No one's mad."

They didn't understand. There was an imprint in the house. He had lost it when there was an imprint in the house, when _Kim_ was in the house, and he could have hurt her. You don't let the imprints get hurt. That was the rule. Don't let the Pack get hurt, don't let your brothers and sisters get hurt, and above all else, don't let the imprints get hurt. He had failed that. Brady had failed that spectacularly. He had let…he had let…Brady dragged an arm across his face, hiding the tears and wiping at the snot. He was so _sorry_…

"Brady," Jared started to shift closer, and Brady cringed, bracing himself.

An expression of hurt crossed Jared's handsome features, but he backed off, dropping to one knee on the floor so he'd be less threatening.

"Brady, I promise that I'm not mad. Calm down, kid, you've gotta breathe," Jared pleaded from behind the Alpha, and Jake sighed heavily, wrapping his hand around the back of Brady's neck and squeezing. At the slightest downward pressure, Brady sank to the floor, still hiding his face in the arm draped over his knees. The Alpha dropped to his heels in front of him, not quite blocking Brady off from Jared.

"What happened?" the Alpha asked quietly, and Jared rubbed his face, glancing towards the hallway. Kim was out of view, but she was on the other side of the kitchen wall, too worried to even obey an Alpha order to stay completely away. Jake followed his gaze and then smiled slightly before repeating his words. "What happened, Jared? Did anything trigger it that you know of?"

Jared shook his head. "We had a normal night, watched a movie, that kind of thing. We got pushy about him slipping out of school the rest of last week, and I don't think he liked hearing he had to go. But Kim was the one pushing, not me. He takes it better from her, but still. He's been doing better, we've been doing better. It shouldn't have been enough. It must have been one of _those_ dreams."

The older wolf didn't sound angry, but Brady still knew what that meant, knew how much anger his Packmate had. So Brady tried to wedge his shoulder blades into the refrigerator, glad that the dent gave him more room. "He's still having them, Jake. Do something, _help _him."

"By doing what?" The Alpha asked grimly.

Jared's eyes flashed. "You know what."

Jake grunted as Brady managed to quiet his breathing, trying to hide his weakness from them. "By forcing him to feel better?" The Alpha exhaled heavily, looking at Brady with tired, worried eyes. "I already am, Jared. I already do. All of us do. I throw so much his way every day that Paul's afraid he's becoming dependent on it. Brady should be half comatose by now, with a goofy ass grin on his face, but look at him, Jared. He's hurt too deep; he has been for too long. I let off just a little bit tonight, I was tired and trying to check on the girls, and this is what happened. There's only so much I can do."

"So you and Paul screw up, and Brady pays for it the rest of his life," Jared murmured, his voice deceptively mild so not to upset Brady more. Didn't Jared get that being calm was what always fucked with Brady the most?

"No, _I_ screw up, and we all have to fix it," Jake replied quietly, moving away from Brady and letting Jared take his place. "We get him through tonight, and then tomorrow, and then the next day. I don't have a better answer than that."

"I'm sorry, Jared," Brady managed to choke out, too upset to realize how he sounded. "I'll fix it. I'll fix it, I promise."

"We'll fix it _together_, kid," Jared replied quietly, reaching out to put his hand on Brady's shoulder. But a refrigerator wasn't a couch, and Jared's hand wasn't Kim's hip. This kind of love Brady didn't know how to accept.

Brady stumbled to his feet, trying to get more room between them, ignored Jared's call for him to wait. Kim tried to stop him when he hit the hall, but Brady pushed past her, past the worry in her eyes. All he could see was their disappointment, and he couldn't handle it. He was ten again, and running away was the only thing he knew how to do. Collin's closet had become the woods, and he just had to get the hell away from here, would be okay if he could get there.

Brady fled.

Jake must have ordered Jared to stay away because it was only the Alpha that tracked him as Brady ran through the woods, ran until the wind stung his eyes and his muscles resisted being pushed that hard. When the nightmares came, the anger quickly followed, a byproduct of his shame. It was so shaming, having Jared and Kim see him bawling on the floor. It upset him so fucking much that Jake had to practically hold his goddamn hand. His body racked with tremors, and even though Brady tried to hold on as long as he could, his control was shot. As much as he hated the others being in his head when he was like this, Brady had no choice but to phase.

He instinctively reached out for the one Packmate that understood, the one that Brady had gotten used to being there when he needed her. Being around Sims, who at least had crawled out of hell with him, had always helped, because she had understood. Her anger, her inability to come to terms with herself had always matched Brady's own, and in her he had found a kindred soul. She had the nightmares too, and she had always sought him out. Not Embry, not Jake, but Brady, because only _they_ got it. Only they had lived through it, only they knew what it was like to walk into darkness and come out with a piece of yourself missing.

But she was gone now. Like everyone else, she had bailed.

Sometimes Brady hated Leah Clearwater and Samantha Carter. They were _all_ trapped, weren't they? What made those two so fucking special? Why did they get to leave, when everyone else had to stay? Seth didn't comment, or if Seth did, he kept his comment to himself. The she-wolves were a sore subject for Seth, one of the few things that could trigger anger in the normally laid back Beta, but Seth wasn't angry. Paul wasn't angry either, and neither was Jake. As he ran, circles and circles and fucking circles around the reservation, no one was angry except for Brady.

Maybe his anger was enough for all of them.

Jake and Seth rarely patrolled together anymore, and it was supposed to be Embry and Quil instead of Seth and Paul right now. Brady wasn't stupid, he knew why the top three wolves of the Pack were running with him. They were the wolves that could hide their thoughts the best, they were the calmest, the most dominant. And between the three of them, Brady had no chance of getting upset enough to break through an Alpha order. Not that Brady had ever been strong enough to do so, he wasn't Collin, that was pretty damn clear. Collin didn't bawl like a baby in front of Paul, or make a complete fool of himself. He hadn't busted up Paul's place again. Fucking _again_.

Quietness in the Packmind. They had learned a long time ago that telling Brady he was wrong, that he thought wrong, only made him angrier. His thoughts were his fucking own, he decided as he tore blindly at a tree with teeth and claws. They were his, and no one could take _that_ from him, at least.

We know, Brady, the dominant wolves promised him softly. We know.

Accepting. So damn accepting, and he didn't know how to handle it. Rage worked. Rage at Paul for making Collin better than him. Rage at Seth, who had things so ridiculously perfect. So what if his sister left? So what that it hurt Seth to be left behind? People got left behind, even fairy-fucking-tale Seth Clearwater. Rage at Jake for being worse than Seth, for getting _everything_. For being the only one of them that got choose what happened to himself, the one standing outside the cage and running the gate, deciding on a goddamn whim who got to go and who had to stay. Maybe _Brady_ was feeling some magic fucking pull like Leah had, could he leave too? Of course not. To hell with them. To hell with all of them.

Quietness in the Packmind, but that wasn't true. That wasn't what they felt, and Brady knew it. Quietness and acceptance, that was utter bullshit, and because he was hurting and he needed some form of physical expression of that hurt, Brady lashed out. He'd _make_ them hurt him, if he pushed hard enough.

He wondered what it felt like for Paul to be married to a whore. To know that no matter how many times he nailed his wife, that he couldn't erase the fact that dozens had already been there, screwed that. Or how pathetic it was that Seth was running to Seattle U. every weekend to hook up with Chancy Hoblin. What, was slumming it just another way for Seth to feel even better about himself? That Seth, such a nice guy that he'll even tap weird and ugly…even his _dick's_ willing to take on a charity case. And then Jake. Jacob Black, humping after a dead bitch he never even had in the first place, being a pretend daddy to that freak half vampire. Because that's what she was, Jake, that little _abomination_—

Owen phased in unexpectedly, so seamlessly sliding into the Packmind that Jake didn't catch him quite fast enough. Only knowing that the Pack was upset and that Brady was at the center of it. That Brady was thinking things like that about Renesmee, who had always treated Brady with such kindness. The younger wolf felt a rush of anger and resentment. Owen didn't understand why—when Brady had so _much_—he still had to treat people like shit.

It was like Brady enjoyed being cruel.

…Fucking _Owen_.

If Brady hadn't already been phased, he would have burst into fang and fur, but as it was, he couldn't do a damn thing. So Brady raged, destroying everything he could touch. He hated Collin for always having everything so good, for being everything that Brady would never be. He hated Kim, because she was a bitch who thought she could control his life because she pretended to be nice to him. He _**hated**_ Jared. He hated Jared so fucking much, and he thought it was a shame that Shane had died instead of Jared. He hated them, he despised them, all three of them. Overcome, he threw everything he had at them, tried to hurt them any way he could, just so someone would just react, so that someone would just stop him, would stop all of this.

And when it was over, when he found himself flattened on the ground in a part of the forest he had destroyed, still intact and exactly the same person he had always been, Brady hated the wolf that held him, the one that was promising to never turn on him. _Brady hated his Alpha_. It was the worst thing a wolf could do.

Jake's body was heavier than Brady's, and he was stronger too. When Brady tried to force his way up, the Alpha simply rolled him and closed his jaws around Brady's throat. The red wolf had no choice but to lay limp beneath him, panting heavily. He could taste blood in his mouth, sharp and metallic, and he felt a flash of horror, terrified of what he might have done without realizing it. Beneath that fear, Brady's rage drained away, replaced with something that Jake felt was worse. It was always the nightmares first, the fear and the memories. Then it was the anger and the phasing. And because Brady was nothing but predictable in his self-destruction, what followed was always the grief. It crushed down on him, sent him spinning down into a spiral of darkness so bleak and terrible that Jake couldn't let him go there. Not again. Not tonight.

Whose blood was it?

It was Brady's blood, the Alpha informed him, removing sharp fangs from Brady's neck but keeping weight on Brady's body. Jake didn't think that Brady hated any of them, or he wouldn't have cared what he could have done. No, Jake thought Brady hated himself, and it made the Alpha deepened saddened. Jake loved all of his wolves, and as one of his least dominant wolves, Jake wanted desperately to protect Brady. Not even an Alpha could protect his wolves from themselves, although he could try.

It had taken years to learn, but Jake could cut them off from their emotions completely if he had to. Most of Jake's practice had come from helping Brady function the first few months following Calgary. It was how Chitakido had controlled so many of his wolves, how he had made them numb to the atrocities they had committed under his command. It went against what Jake believed in, because the day they stopped being able to feel was the day that they stopped being human and started being slaves to this fate. Joy, hate, pleasure, suffering…it was what made them human. It was what made them who they were, their ties to the selves they had lost when they had become wolves.

Too often Jake had to cut Brady off anyways.

There had been times since Calgary that Brady had drank himself into near unconsciousness, the world blurring away beneath a lack of feeling that provided a blessed, if temporary relief. But Jake was so much better. It was as if his body and his soul had been given a shot of Novocain, everything numbed completely away. All that was left was an awareness of who he was, and an awareness of what he was doing, and an utter detachment from everything else.

Nothing. He drifted, feeling nothing. No fear, no anger, no pain.

Nothing. He drifted, wanting nothing. Needing nothing. Being nothing.

Nothing. It was better this way, if 'better' had any meaning when Brady could feel nothing. Yeah, it had to be better this way…

Paul wanted Jake to let off Brady. The pup was developing an addict's personality, and this wouldn't help him in the long run, it would just make things worse. Seth had some ideas on what to do but he wanted to talk about them later. Jake just wanted to pile his entire Pack in his bedroom and sleep in front of the door for the rest of his life.

Whatever else they wanted, Brady didn't know, because even that was numbed away. Nothing.

It was a shell of the wolf that came back to himself later. Brady didn't know how long he had been there, just that Jake's russet wolf form was stretched out near Brady's, keeping him warm. Owen was gone, but Quil was back in the Packmind. Jake was shielding him, but Brady had the impression that Quil was worried. Since Quil was a worrier, it didn't necessarily mean it was Brady's fault, but he added it on the pile on blame, just in case.

Jake snuffed Brady's back as the red wolf put his nose between his paws. Brady was still numbed somewhat, but now that it was over, he felt emptied and lost. He didn't know where to go, or what to do.

The Alpha thought his wolf didn't have to worry about that. The Alpha would tell him where to go, and what to do, that was why there was an Alpha. Brady would go to Jared and Kim's place, and Seth would take him there. As for what to do, Brady would go to school tomorrow, and if he wanted to, he would flirt with Nikki Connweller. Brady usually liked flirting with her, and he had been thinking about her all week.

That was what the Alpha wanted, so that was what Brady did, even though he was shaky as he padded back through the woods towards Jared's home. Seth's sandy wolf form padded along with him, and it was shaming to Brady that they thought he needed a babysitter, especially when Brady had lashed out at both Seth and Chancy. Seth didn't think it was okay, and he was pretty pissed about the Chancy part, but they'd deal with that later. The Beta was worried about Brady, they all were. Seth also thought that Brady might want to stay clear of Paul for a few days.

Brady's resistance kept Seth from following the younger wolf inside when they reached the apartment. Ironic, when it was only with Seth's order that Brady was able to make it through the back door.

The apartment was still trashed when a naked and filthy Brady slunk inside, although some effort had been made to upright the furniture that had been knocked over. Quickly grabbing a pair of boxers from the hall closet where he kept his things, Brady tried to identify whose smell was now inside the apartment, one that hadn't been there when Brady had gone. It took him a moment, and then he figured it out. Charlie Swan. The cops had been called, not surprising considering the noise Brady's episode must have caused. But instead of waiting and yelling at Brady for causing them trouble, Kim and Jared had gone back to bed.

Deeply ashamed, Brady started picking up what he could. The laminate countertop had a two foot long edge section that was cracked with a couple pieces broken off, but Brady was pretty sure they could patch it back together. The table could be reinforced beneath where it had split, and with enough wood glue and stain, it could be covered. The chair, one of a set that Sam had made for them as a gift, was beyond repair.

That one hurt, because Brady knew how much it had meant to Jared to get a present from Sam, a present just because the previous Alpha had felt like it. Nearly sick with stress and regret, Brady gathered up the shards and splinters and carefully piled them together in his largest sweatshirt, tucking the bundle in the hall closet.

He'd fix it, somehow. He _had_ to.

The broken glass from the coffee table was gone, although bits dusted the carpet still. Jared had dragged the couch back into place, and between them they must have made sure Brady's bed was clear of glass so he could sleep there the rest of the night. It had been kind of them, but there was no way that he was going to be able to do that. Instead Brady knelt on the carpet and tried to find every bit of glass his shaking fingers could pick up, refusing to look at the television set. He wasn't ready to face that yet.

"Please stop, Kim," Jared's voice rumbled softly in the other room, pleading. "Brady's home now, I heard him come in. You're not going to have any nails left if you keep doing that."

"Maybe we should go check on him, Jared. What if he leaves again?"

"He won't leave again," Jared replied firmly if quietly. "But if he looks like I think he does, he needs a shower before getting on that couch." Out in the living room, Brady ducked his head, mumbling that he would.

Finally he went to inspect the television. The screen was cracked and the plastic casing had come apart on one side when it had been knocked down. The casing could be fixed, but when Brady plugged it in, the television's innards sparked and crackled, and nothing came on the screen. It was dead. Brady knew he would have to get a job somehow to replace it, because it had cost some good money.

Jared had made it clear that Brady had to shower, and the small apartment only had one full bathroom, located in the couple's bedroom. It was inconvenient, but it was the best they could afford at the moment. Kim was asleep when Brady finally worked up the courage to creep into the room. He knew that Jared would want to talk about tonight, but right now Jared simply rolled over and wrapped his arm over Kim's waist, opening one eye to acknowledge Brady was there before closing it again. It wasn't until Jared settled his face down close to Kim's neck that Brady released the breath he was holding or his death grip on his school clothes.

Jared would want to talk but not now. That was…a relief.

There was a big mirror above the single sink, but as Brady turned on the shower to start heating the water, he made sure not to look at his reflection. Some things were harder to see than others, and it had been a bad night. He just wanted to pretend it was over, to make it all just go away.

It had been a long time since Brady could remember feeling heat or cold, but as he showered, the steady rhythm of the water on his head and the back of his neck made him feel more normal. Damn, he hated feeling abnormal. That was what Pack meant for Brady, being different all the time. All the fucking time. Brady wasn't sure what was worse: being who he used to be, a weak kid stuck in a weak body, or being what he was now, a weak man stuck in a strong body. Either way he was weak.

He had cried in front of Jared again. _Dammit_.

Overcome with anger and shame, Brady didn't know how to react, what to do. He'd already destroyed something, and all that had done was hurt Jared and Kim. He'd tried to get his Packmates to fight with him, and they wouldn't. He couldn't leave, and he had too much in his head to sit still. Too many memories that he didn't know how to deal with. So he stood in the shower, and he let the steaming hot water beat down on his neck. And when he realized that he was partially hardened, Brady couldn't help laughing sardonically in self-disgust. Maybe that was why he was always miserable. Maybe he got off on this shit.

Something inside Brady was wrong. He knew that. He'd known that from the time that he was a child, and he knew how dark it was inside himself. So he sank into that darkness, closing his eyes and remembering a girl's sweet smile, and the way her lips felt against his. It was _wrong_, remembering the way her shirt stretched across her breasts, even more wrong to imagine pulling that shirt off. She was a nice girl, and she deserved better than a fucked-up guy jerking off to the image of her spread out before him.

Alone in the shower, Brady Jennings pressed his forehead to the wall and clenched his fist against the tile above his head, thinking that Nikki Connweller really did deserve better. Better than him. Better than _this_.

He did it anyways.

* * *

><p><em> She was confused, frightened. Something was happening, and Nikki had no idea what that was. It frightened her even more what Brady was saying.<em>

_ "Collin, don't you fucking dare!" Brady roared, tossing Callie over his shoulder and reaching out to grab Owen by the base of the neck, hauling them both away from her. Owen was trembling badly. "Collin, he'll kill you!"_

_ "Love you, Brade," Collin whispered to his best friend. And then he began to run._

_ "Collin! Dammit, Collin!" Brady's face, full of fear. Callie mumbling incoherently over Brady's shoulder, her whole body tremoring. Owen's eyes jerking to her in horror as he started tremoring uncontrollably. "Nikki, get back to the Jeep!"_

_ But she hadn't moved. She had stood there staring, horrified, as two people she had thought she knew burst into fur and fang. Confused and frightened, one of them lunged…_

Nikki woke up with a start, panting. For a moment she stared around her room, eyes wide and heart racing, but then she realized that she had just been dreaming. Then she groaned and fell back onto her bedding, covering her face with her pillow.

"Go back to sleep, Connweller," she told herself firmly. "Go back to sleep."

…

Nope. Not happening. The youngest Connweller rolled out of her bed to her feet, completely awake. When she had been younger, Nikki had been a terror to get out of bed. She'd lie, cheat, and steal to get an extra few minutes of precious slumber. But these days sleep didn't come as easily to her. And now with wolves invading her dreams as well, it made it hard to pretend everything was normal. There was no more rolling over and disappearing back into her bed. Once she was awake, she was definitely, unequivocally awake.

It seriously sucked.

Nikki checked the alarm clock on her dresser and groaned. "Five fifteen? _Seriously_?" she muttered to herself, shaking her head. She didn't have to be at school until eight, meaning that she had almost two hours to kill until her alarm was supposed to go off. The young woman rubbed her eyes before looking down at her Marceline the Vampire Queen pajama pants.

"It's not my fault," she promised the cartoon character, but Marceline just peered back up at her distrustfully. Nikki allowed herself one more dramatic flop onto her bed, poked her belly to see if she'd somehow magically lost it over her partial night's sleep. No luck there either.

It was tempting to go downstairs and curl up with a massive glass of milk and watch Ninja Turtles all morning, but Nikki knew she really needed to practice. She'd lazed about all summer, browning her already russet skin under the Florida sun, and now she needed to get back into shape for the basketball season. She was just a sophomore, but she thought she had a chance at starting this year. Yeah…she'd probably better practice.

The house had gotten quieter now that Kim had moved out. Sometimes Nikki missed having her sister around, but Kim had always been pretty excitable, and the family could all appreciate the lessening of the noise level. Nikki's parents were both still asleep, so after sneakily drinking from the milk carton, Nikki got herself changed into sweats and grabbed her basketball from where she always kept it next to her bed.

It was too early to shoot hoops in the driveway. Most of the houses around here didn't have paved drives, but her father had poured a patch of concrete in front of their small, one-car garage so that she'd have a place to play. Unfortunately the noise from the ball hitting the pavement would echo through the still sleeping neighborhood, and Nikki had woken up disgruntled neighbors more than once. But there was a public court not too far away, where no one would likely be this early in the morning, and it had no houses nearby to disturb. So the young woman grabbed herself a water bottle, leaving a note for her parents as she slipped out the front door.

The reservation was quiet, a heavy fog rolling across the green grasses and covering the land, keeping its secrets. La Push had a lot of secrets.

Nikki Connweller didn't like secrets, or at least, she didn't like having her own secrets. Secrets caused problems, secrets made her feel badly, because they would sit in the pit of her stomach and fester. That being said, Nikki was usually very good at keeping _other_ people's secrets. She had never told anyone that Kim and Jared's first date had been a disaster, including Jared having to pop a zit on Kim's face. Nikki had never told anyone that Dawn had lost her virginity last year to a boy in Forks named Aaron, because Dawn thought Quil would find out and scare her boyfriend off. And Nikki had never told anyone that the only reason Skylar took karate lessons at Embry Call's dojo was because Skylar thought Embry was hot.

She had never told anyone that she saw Seth Clearwater crawl headfirst under Chancy Hoblin's sweatshirt last spring, or that she saw the devastated expression on Samantha's Carter's face the last day Samantha and Leah had been in La Push. Nikki had never breathed a peep of the fact that Sue Clearwater smoked like a chimney whenever no one was around, or that she tried to cover the smell from her son by dousing herself with air freshener spray.

But there was one time that Nikki should have told. She had been eight, and she had been outside playing. The reservation was a tight knit community, and everyone felt comfortable letting their children roam, at least as long as they stayed close to the main street. She had been by herself that afternoon, and had seen something she wasn't supposed to see. Nikki had gone home in tears, but Kim had been in the shower, her mom had been busy cooking dinner, and her dad had been writing. So Nikki had convinced herself that maybe she hadn't seen what she had thought she'd seen. Eleven year old Brady Jennings had bragged the rest of the week to anyone who would listen that Collin might have punched him and given him that bruise, but _Brady_ had won their wrestling match. Collin had collaborated wholeheartedly, and made sure to include sound effects and dramatic reenactments.

Only she had known that it was a complete lie.

Ever since then, Nikki had tried to call it as she saw it. So maybe she was a little too sarcastic, and maybe she could be lacking in tact at times, but that day had stayed with her, Brady Jennings had stayed with her. Funny how all of her secrets these days, the ones that other people needed to know, centered around that same young man. And wolves. And—most importantly—vampires.

As it always did, the thought of vampires made her shiver.

"They should know," Nikki told herself as she walked down the empty road off towards the worse side of the reservation, her basketball tucked under her armpit, and her free hand rubbing high up on the back of her neck. "We should all have _known_."

As she began warming up on the worn, old court shooting a series of free throws and jogging to catch the ball, Nikki tried to put all of that out of her mind and focus on what she was doing. It didn't work very well, because her mind kept drifting to the first day of school, relaxing on Collin Littlesea's bed with Brady Jennings' arm around her. And that would invariably make her think of the next part, the kissing, and then the last part, where she had apparently sent him fleeing for the hills.

Lost in her thoughts, Nikki didn't realize she was frowning, or that to an outsider, she might appear upset. She wasn't upset, she was just…thinking.

Nikki had worked up a decent sweat by the time something caught her attention, a movement in the forest. Nikki caught her basketball under her arm, craning her head to see better. One of the Pack was coming out of the woods, pulling his shirt on as he emerged. It was Paul Coho, the newly _married_ Paul Coho, Nikki reminded herself, as she got a glimpse of tight abdominal muscles. It was bad manners to stare at a married man, or to think dirty things about him, Nikki often had to convince herself, so she went back to dribbling idly, wondering why he was here when he lived on the other side of the rez.

To Nikki's surprise and complete embarrassment, Paul trotted right on over to her.

"Hey," Paul grunted, still tucking his shirt into his jeans as he came up to the court. "You're out early."

Nikki blushed, but that was normal. She'd been blushing around Paul for years now. "Yeah…needed some practice," the sophomore admitted, shrugging. "Too much sitting around this summer, I guess."

"Here," he said, and to Nikki's surprise, Paul put his hands up. "I just got done patrolling, and I'm too wired to sleep. One on one?"

She flashed Paul a grin, back stepping and dribbling the ball a few times. "What, and let myself get creamed by the wolfman? I don't think so," Nikki snickered. Paul suddenly darted in, stealing the ball from her. "Hey!"

The wolf turned and shot a two-pointer. He grimaced when it bounced off the rim. "Damn…"

"I will play Horse though," Nikki grinned, catching the ball and shooting her own basket. "If you're as rusty as Jared is at playing, it'll be good for my self-esteem."

The ball swooshed through the hoop, and Paul chuckled. "You _do_ know that it takes extra effort to not accidentally deflate this thing by holding it too hard, right?" He shot again, from where Nikki had previously, and once again, the ball hit the rim but bounced off. "H."

It was tempting to tease him, but Nikki just bit her lip and tried not to let her amusement show too much. She obviously didn't cover well because Paul caught her eye and winked. The fact that he did it right before she tried to make a layup might have been why she missed. Making a face, she lobbed Paul the basketball and stood back.

"Now who's rusty?" Paul smirked, and just because he could, he took a half running step and jumped, dunking the basketball. Nikki rolled her eyes, but laughed as he dropped back down and passed her the ball. She was far too short to ever make a slam dunk.

"H," Nikki conceded, dribbling around absently as she tried to decide where to shoot from next. The three point line was faded away from years of Quileute feet scraping over it, but Nikki backed up past where the line should have been. Her focus wasn't as good with Paul there, but the need to not make an idiot of herself in front of him made Nikki force herself to concentrate.

"Nice shot," Paul rumbled when the ball swished silently through the hoop a second time. Nikki smiled, pleased at the compliment. To her surprise, he smiled back at her. Smiles from Paul Coho were rare, so rare that most of the town had never even seen him do so until one tiny blonde had entered his life.

When Paul made his basket, if not as neatly as Nikki had, he dribbled around, as if simply enjoying going through the motions of playing a game.

"How's Cassie?" Nikki asked eventually, hoping it didn't come across as prying. It just seemed like the thing to do, to ask. Cassie was Paul's wife, and his imprint, and as a wolf, that meant that she was the most important thing in Paul's life. Sure enough, a look of fierce pride flashed across Paul's face as he did a right-handed layup.

"Cass? She's…doing better," Paul rumbled, and Nikki was sure that she missed something in that answer. But Kim had told Nikki that Cassie was having a hard time adjusting to reservation life. The rumors had been that she resented marrying someone as poor as Paul. Everyone remembered the Cassie that had worn her revealing clothing, the one who had driven a sports car into the reservation, sealing her title as 'outsider' from day one. Nikki had never understood why no one ever remembered how hard Cassie had worked at the pizza parlor when Paul and Jared had left town, or how she always had a kind smile for everyone she met.

There were other rumors about Paul's wife, but Nikki refused to listen to those.

"She had a tough year, but we got through it," Paul said as Nikki did a right-handed layup as well. He paused as if trying to decide how much to tell her. "She danced, you know that, right?"

"Yeah," Nikki nodded. "She was really good, wasn't she?"

Again, his pride in his wife etched across his features. "Cass still is. But she danced too long, and it messed up her legs really bad. She spent this last year getting herself clean from the meds she was on…and to deal with some other stuff. It was a rough year for her, but she did it."

Nikki wasn't sure why Paul was talking to her like this, sharing as much as he was, but Nikki didn't mind. It made her feel like she was in the loop instead of just someone on the sidelines, someone who knew a secret but wasn't allowed to actually be a part of that secret. Plus Nikki had always watched Cassie try so hard to make everyone around her feel happiness, so much so that Nikki had always wondered if the small woman had anything left for herself.

"Is she happier now?" Nikki asked, remembering that it was her turn. A left-handed layup was apparently easier for her than Paul, or maybe he was distracted by the conversation. Paul's caramel colored eyes locked onto Nikki's, and then he was smiling again, a second rare smile just for her.

"You don't miss much, do you?" Paul rumbled, repeating the left-handed layup just to prove that he could.

"Hey, I'm fifteen, Paul. Emotional growth and all that crap. That's 'O' for you, by the way."

Paul chuckled and made Nikki work at stealing the ball away from him, whistling playfully when she sank another three pointer. "Who's getting creamed here? And yeah, she's happier. Cass just wants to be happy on her own terms, and in her own time. When she decides what's best for her, she'll let us all know."

Nikki nodded, pleased to see Paul pleased, and then fell silent, settling into playing the game. She won, of course. Paul was fast and he could jump high. His long arms were a pain in the ass to defend against, but he was fifty-fifty when it came to shooting the ball. Afterwards they played one-on-one, just to even things out. It was a great workout, better practice than she had expected this morning, although it was clear how out of shape she was.

"Paul, why are you here?" Nikki asked when they were taking a breather. Well, she was taking a breather, pushing her sweaty hair out of her eyes and drinking from the water bottle she had brought along. Paul wasn't winded at all. "Not that I mind," she added quickly when Paul raised an eyebrow. "You and I just never hang out, and if you were out all night, I just was wondering…well…why?"

Paul held up his hands for the basketball, and Nikki passed it to him as she sank down to the pavement, crossing her legs beneath her. "Does it matter?" Paul shrugged, and Nikki looked down at her knees.

"I guess not."

The wolf played around, trying to spin the basketball on his large finger. Her head shot up as Paul finally settled himself down across from her. "You out here this early because of Brady?"

Wow, he cut right to the chase, didn't he? Nikki had never wanted to be the girl who pined after someone, or was viewed as being that type, and she made a face. "That would be really lame, huh? No, I'm out here this early because I wanted to play. Brady has nothing to do with that."

The young woman drifted off, looking at her shoelaces now. Was she out here because of Brady, inadvertently? Nikki dreamed a lot about that day where she had seen Owen and Callie phase, but that was Pack general, not Brady specific. Paul was looking at her with knowing eyes, and Nikki sighed, rolling her own.

"Okay, I'm willing to admit that I maybe just _might_ have had a certain person in my thoughts while I was practicing, but that is in no way admitting to Brady lust."

Paul raised an eyebrow. "Brady lust?"

Nikki cast around for help, but saw nothing but a jack rabbit, and it didn't look like it was interested in saving her. "Umm, Brady distraction? That is in no way admitting to Brady distraction?"

"You said lust."

"I'm pretty sure you heard me wrong," Nikki promised him, "You know, it's so windy." She tried to make noise like a windy day, which ended up more of a pathetic whistling attempt, and while she was puffing out her cheeks, Paul snorted and passed her the ball back.

"That was sad. Try a little louder."

Nikki made a face at Paul, but then laughed. Both fell quiet, and after a few moments, Nikki began fiddling with her water bottle. She figured that if she had always been able to trust these guys, then she should be able to trust them still. Paul had been around her house a lot over the last few years, and he might make her nervous, but he had always noticed if she was upset, and between him and Jared, they had always hung around until she told them why. Besides, Paul was Brady's Packmate. It would be nice to talk about Brady with someone that didn't hate him.

"My friends are pissed he didn't talk to me all summer," Nikki finally said, taking a drink of her water. "And it sucks that I can't explain anything to them. They think he's a jerk and a slacker, but they don't have the whole story. Now they're even more pissed because we…well…messed around a little last week and he hasn't come to school or come by at all, or spoken to me afterwards.

Nikki blushed a little at that admittance, but Paul's face remained expressionless, and she hurried past that part. "I mean, I know why he hasn't said anything to me. I kind of did this whole 'I want a good boyfriend, and if you can't be that, take a hike' thing. So he took a hike. He didn't do anything wrong, it just wasn't…I don't know. It just keeps getting screwed up before it goes anywhere," Nikki trailed off unhappily. "But he's not a terrible person, and I wish other people would realize that."

Paul was silent for a while, and then he nudged her ankle with his bare, dirt-covered toe.

"Don't let guys treat you badly," the wolf told her quietly. "Even when there could be reasons to explain why they did what they did, never let a guy treat you badly, Nikki. If he hurts you, treats you wrong, you _always_ walk away. There's nothing romantic about putting up with someone's shit just to prove you can, to prove that you're loyal. There are people in this world that will treat you right, so don't waste your time on someone who won't."

She felt her heart twist a little at that. "You think I shouldn't bother with Brady," she clarified, and Paul's standard frown wrinkled his brow.

"I think that Brady's a good kid, but he's pretty messed up," Paul admitted, sounding tired. "I think Brady's at a place where he's either going to swing one way or the other. Brady's my brother, and I'm going to have his back no matter what, but not everyone ends up good, Nikki. Jared and Kim are trying, and everyone can see how much difference they've made in his life, but Brady came from a bad place. He's had a lot of bad things happen to him. Brady lives with that inside him, and he's not been able to let go and let himself rise above it. It's hard to be good when you're hanging on so hard to the bad."

That hurt to hear, made her hurt for Brady, and Nikki's heart twisted again. Paul's voice was gruff with warning, but his eyes were sad. "Listen, Nik, you can't fix him. You can care about him, and you can support him, and you can be his friend. But if he starts to take you down the wrong path, whether it's only a little bad or a lot bad, you've got to know when to tell him no. I tried to fix Cass, for a long time I tried to fix her, but it doesn't work like that. They have to decide who they want to be, and you have to look at the reality of what they are and decide if that's what you want."

It was a big speech from Paul, and it made Nikki wonder just what had happened to make him say it.

Paul paused, as if hesitant to continue, but then he reached forward and took Nikki's hand. As it always did with certain people, Nikki got a small jolt of awareness of him, followed by the impression that there was more than one person looking out through Paul's eyes. "He cares about you too, Nikki, but Brady needs to figure out how to be good to himself before he can ever be good to someone else. I'm not saying don't waste your time with him. I'm saying to watch out for yourself. Know what you won't put up with and stand your ground. And then if you have to, walk away."

"Would you walk away from Cassie?" Nikki blurted out, unable to stop herself. "She's your imprint, right? Could you ever walk away from her?"

The wolf locked eyes with her, and Nikki could feel his stare pushing at her with the weight of two behind it. She had to look down. "No," Paul finally said, his voice soft. "But I would never have picked someone wrong for me in the first place."

If his eyes flashed blue for just a moment, Nikki was sure she was just imagining it.

* * *

><p>Callie Jennings was still asleep when her Alpha plopped down on the bed next to her.<p>

She had a small bed, and she weighed half what the wolf next to her weighed, so when Jake dropped down heavily, she bounced upwards with a yelp of surprise and promptly fell off the side of the bed onto the floor. Sonofabitch.

"What the hell was that for?" Callie growled, glaring up off the carpet at her Alpha. Leaning over the side of the mattress to admire his handiwork, Jake grinned down at her.

"That was your wake up call, Miss Jennings," Jake chuckled, ignoring her bared ass and ruffling her hair instead. "Come on, pumpkin, rise and shine. A week of school avoidance is the limit of what strings I can pull. By the way, you've been very sick."

Dark strands poofed around her head messily as Callie blew her bangs out of her eyes. "How sick are we talking about here?" she asked, yawning and blinking sleepily. "Cause I'm feeling pretty shitty still. Better make it a second week off."

Jake smirked at that, and then reached down, wrapping his massive arm around her waist and flipping her back on the bed with him. Fresh off patrol, he was only in a pair of cutoffs, and Callie's eyes brightened as they swept down the Alpha's muscled form. Jake watched her eye him, and he smiled at her appreciation, but he turned his face when she moved in to kiss him.

"Girlfriend, remember?" he reminded her kindly, softening his rejection by dropping a light kiss of his own on her forehead.

Callie sighed and rolled onto her back, stretching out languidly. "I know, I know, the bartender in Hoquiam. Your whole fidelity thing is kind of boring, Jake," she decided. "Me? I've never been bothered by such things."

"So I've heard," Jake agreed while yawning himself, "It's driving Collin nuts, by the way."

"Collin?" Callie raised a sculpted eyebrow, before snuggling into Jake's shoulder. "He's worse than I am, which makes us both much cooler than you. Now shut up so I can go back to sleep."

The Alpha chuckled but shifted to let his youngest she-wolf curl into him. "Keep playing around, honey, and both of you will get hurt. Or hurt someone else," Jake rumbled, running his hand over her tanned stomach. "Have you been eating enough, Callie?"

The she-wolf sighed happily at the attention, even if it wasn't the attention she would have preferred. Callie enjoyed sleeping with Collin, he was skilled enough to make it worth her while, and they had fun together. But there were only two people that had ever caught Callie's complete interest, and one was married and avoided her as much as possible. Unlike Jared Qahla, at least Jake didn't think she was the devil incarnate.

"Cal?"

"Hmmm?"

"Are you eating enough?" Jake repeated slowly, trying and failing to make a stern face at her. "You only started phasing a few months ago, and you still need to make sure you eat every time you're hungry. Hungry she-wolves—"

"Are grumpy she-wolves, yeah, I know." Callie rolled her eyes and suddenly rose from the bed, her motions fluid and graceful. Jake's eyes watched her, not trying to conceal his possessive pride. Callie flushed slightly under the weight of his attention, angling so that her face was turned away as she dug through her dresser for underwear that matched. She was used to being watched for her body, but with Jake it was different. He watched her for _her_.

"I'm fine. Mom might be an alcoholic, but she still needs to eat. Although it's kind of funny watching Uncle Bradley try to figure out why she and I are going through so much food, but neither of us is getting fat," Callie smirked. When Jake's face darkened, Callie shrugged. "What? He pays the bills, so he's going to come around, Jake. And you know how he is, suspicious as all hell. He and Carter think someone's been breaking in and stealing the rest. By the way, watch the kitchen window sill, they booby trapped it."

Jake raised an eyebrow and snorted. "With _what_?"

"Bear trap," the young she-wolf snickered. "I tried to convince them to use a wolf trap, you know, for the irony, but they've got some weird ideas those two. Carter especially, he's—" Halfway through her sentence, Callie clamped her mouth shut. Just because they told her shit, and she had a hard time not thinking about it when phased, didn't mean she had to be a rat when she was in human form.

The Alpha watched her silently as she fastened a black bra on and pulled a black tank top over it. Callie had always tended towards monochromatic clothing, and she liked how she looked in black. The better she felt, the darker clothing she wore, and a morning spent with the Alpha was always a nice morning. Even if the asshole _had_ woken her up.

"You should take me out for breakfast," Callie decided as she pulled on a black and red thong. "Consider it reparations for ending my beauty sleep."

Jake grinned and kicked his feet up on the footboard of her bed, crossing his arms behind his head. "Do I look like I'm made of money?" he countered.

Callie eyed him, then crawled back onto the bed, not hiding her intentions as she straddled him. As always, physical contact with the Alpha satisfied something deep inside of her, and Callie smiled despite her intention to come off as seductive. She had no idea that her genuine smile, bright and warm despite its rarity, was far more seductive to Jake than her dressing or undressing in front of him.

"Actually, you look broke as fuck like the rest of us," Callie teased, "But at least you have a job, and you can still buy me breakfast. My Alpha thinks I'm not eating enough."

His job wasn't that great. Callie thought that the Alpha of their Pack shouldn't be mopping floors and taking out trash at the hospital in Forks, but it was the best Jake had been able to get. Rebuilding and reselling bikes helped too, but the reality was that the economy sucked, and for a reservation with an already high poverty rate, jobs were few and far between.

Still, he was her Alpha. He was much too good to have to do that shit.

Jake smiled fondly at her, resting his hands on Callie's hips, and this time when she leaned in to kiss him, he didn't pull away. The kiss was light, a soft brushing of his lips against hers, and then Jake shifted so that he was sitting up, Callie's long legs wrapping around his waist. She was beautiful, she knew it, and she saw it reflected in his eyes when he brushed a hand over her hair, tucking it back behind her ear. She liked sex, he knew that too, and Jake was considering it. But he didn't want it, was only wavering because he tried so damn hard to keep her happy.

Callie knew that Jake wanted a lot of things for his Pack, but above all he just wanted them to be happy already. He especially wanted _her_ to be happy, the only she-wolf he had left, and he wanted her to be happy _there_ with them. The Alpha didn't even try to hide that he cared about her, and that he needed her, and that she was important to him. Maybe he catered to her too much, but Seth wasn't the only one with abandonment issues right now.

If treating Callie well didn't soften the hurt that was Leah and Sims' loss, at least it might spare the Alpha a similar pain.

It pissed her off, being compared to those two, pissed her off even more because they had walked away from someone who was quickly becoming the center of Callie's world. Callie knew she could be selfish, and she didn't really give a shit if she was. Life had taught her to watch her own ass, to take what she could and to defend what was hers so it wasn't taken away from her. But she had a weakness when it came to Jacob Black, just like she was a weakness for him, and while she didn't mind manipulation to get what she wanted, she didn't have the heart to do it to him, not when it would cause him distress later. Small brief kisses and cuddling were one thing, they didn't mean that much, not with a Pack that constantly needed to touch each other and stay close to each other. But Jake really did like that bartender, and he was too loyal to cheat and not feel like shit about it.

Sighing disconsolately, Callie nipped Jake's shoulder with small sharp teeth, a rebuke for preferring someone else when she was right there, and she swung her leg over. Graceful or not, dismounting an Alpha on a tiny bed could lead to falling on one's ass for the second time in one morning, and Callie flipped Jake off as he laughed loudly. It was enough to wake up her mother and grandmother, but Felicia Jennings hadn't pulled herself out of the bottle for years and Callie's grandmother was growing senile in her old age. The only one who would have cared was Derek, and Derek had bailed La Push as soon as he could. Callie didn't blame him one bit.

"You're a dick," she decided with a groan, swatting at the hand that tried to mess up her still poofy hair again. "And the next time your ass gets in my bed, you better bring something to make it worth it, wolf."

"My woman would castrate me," Jake murmured, sounding pleased at the thought as he stood up and stretched, pulling the she-wolf to her feet. "It's kind of sexy, actually." Callie rolled her eyes but submitted to the hug the Alpha gave her. "I've got a shift this morning anyways, so I'll buy you breakfast in town, but two conditions," Jake told the tall, slender she-wolf. "One, you get your ass to school and on time. Two, you be nice to Brady today. He had a rough night, so cut him a break."

The she-wolf frowned, but nodded. School would have to come eventually, she'd known she'd only get away with it for a while with the Pack looking over her shoulder. It was weird having people actually give a shit, whether it was Pack induced or not. As for Brady…well…she'd had a front row seat to enough of his life. There was a reason Callie Jennings didn't like looking into mirrors. When you looked too closely, it was too damn hard to ignore what you were seeing. But it was Jake asking, and as of yet, she hadn't been able to tell Jake no.

"Whatever," Callie mumbled, pressing her face into her Alpha's chest and enjoying that right now, his attention was all hers. It was all hers, because she was his she-wolf, and that was exactly how it was supposed to be.

There was a lot about being a wolf that Callie hated, but this part…this part was definitely more than okay.

* * *

><p>On the worst of days, Brady stayed close to Collin.<p>

They had been best friends for a long time, and Collin knew better than everyone else that Brady didn't want to talk about shit. He didn't want to deal with shit, and he didn't want to try and improve. He just wanted to be distracted, maybe find a project or two to take his mind off of things, and if there was something that Collin was good at, it was finding distractions. The last few years those distractions had almost entirely been in female form, entirely provided by Collin. Since Brady aggressively avoided females that viewed him as a stepping stone to get to Collin, and tended to frighten off the rest with his surly disposition, self-provided female distraction was rare.

Yet, for once, Brady had plenty of self-provided female distraction, if not in as willing a form as Collin usually produced. Brady's distraction had already made herself clear, if confusingly so for the inexperienced young wolf, so he was improvising. Frankly, Brady was in over his head when it came to Nikki Connweller. And if the amusement in Kim's eyes had been any indication last night at dinner when he had so casually asked about Nikki, they all knew it.

_Kim_...he could have hurt her_. Wrecking the apartment…_always causing trouble even when he was trying so hard not to._ Jared's television…_shit.

No, Brady wasn't going to think about it. He'd deal with it later, when he had to. Right now he'd just deal with her, which was a lot easier today than it had been the previous week. Comparisons and all that shit.

Brady had learned a long time ago how to sneak into Collin's room quietly, but since the Littleseas had left early that morning, he wasn't worried about it. Collin's closet was on the far side of the room, and Brady made sure to step on Collin's stomach on his way over the bed. The other wolf's pained groan was particularly satisfying, as was Collin's sleepily grumped, "You _dick_."

"Yep," Brady drawled, disappearing into Collin's closet. It was a dangerous place, full of sharp things and broken things and moldy stinky things, but Brady had seen worse. Collin's room had improved significantly when he started sneaking girls into it.

After a few more choice curse words, Collin rolled over and looked at his clock. "Dude, it's _six_ in the morning. We don't have school for two hours, why the _hell_ are you here?"

Brady didn't answer, but he did made a disgusted sound. "Did you know you have cake in here?"

Collin perked up and hoisted himself into a sitting position. "Really, what kind?"

"Brown."

"Oh. Just toss it back in then," Collin yawned, dropping back on his bed. "Fuck, I'm tired."

Brady ignored Collin's whining, continuing to pull things out of the back of Collin's closet and toss them aside. Stolen traffic sign from Forks? Not what Brady was looking for. Collin's old and relatively unused guitar? Nope, and Collin was a dumbass for storing it like this. Shoebox full of porn? Hmmm, maybe he should set that aside for now, but Brady was remembering that one.

"You know, telling me what you're looking for might be more productive than destroying my room," Collin grumbled, rubbing a hand over his face wearily. "Hey, did something go down last night? Jake was blocking me pretty heavily, but I got the feeling that both Paul and Seth were pretty pissed."

Brady paused momentarily, then grunted. Collin had a lifetime of learning Brady's grunts, Brady's body language, and Brady's inability to communicate what he was feeling, thinking, or wanting. So when Brady ducked his head a little and grew stony faced, Collin sighed. "Paul _and_ Seth? Dude, you _have_ to stop. If you want to pick a fight, do it with me. We can play it off as wrestling or some shit. Those two are too strong, and if they get pissed off enough to take it to Jake for a formal fight, you know—"

"Yeah, I know. I'll get my ass kicked," Brady grumped sourly from the closet, and Collin smirked.

"Actually, I was going to say that I'm going to have to make up some shit to Jake about it being a double complaint, and we're _both_ going to get our asses kicked."

The wolf in the closet ducked his head a little more, but the smallest of smiles was curving his lips at his friend's loyalty. "You're an idiot, Collin."

"Yeah, probably," Collin agreed, scratching his armpit and yawning again. "Are we skipping school today? Cause the principal called and I got bitched out last night by my folks about blowing off the rest of last week. Can you believe they're talking about driving me to Forks for school every day? Like it'll magically fix me back to what they want me to be, or something."

"If they can afford that shit, then why the hell don't they move out of here?" Brady rumbled, finding an old plastic toy bin that had been covered by several boxes of magazines. Some of them were Playboys, but most were from Collin's skateboarder phase. He didn't expect Collin to answer, Brady already knew how Collin's family felt.

The Littleseas had always been deeply proud of their heritage, and even though they were one of the few families on the rez that could have afforded living elsewhere, if modestly, they refused to leave. Instead they tried to sink as much of their money back into the tribe as they could, to try and help their people as much as they could. Unemployment was too high, standard of living was too low, and the Littleseas felt that pulling their own limited resources out of the community would only aid a problem that had been growing since the first reservations had been established. That they were considering sending Collin to a different school than the tribal school only showed how desperate they were becoming.

Brady drummed his fingers on the toy box before opening it up. It had been years since he had dug through this, but the old things were still there. Deep on the bottom were the last of the G.I. Joe's, before they had decided that they were too mature and too cool to be seen playing with toys. Above those were a plastic compass and a pocket knife, and several folded up pieces of paper: maps of the reservation that would lead two boys to adventure and treasure, hand drawn and carefully planned. Only one was professional looking, the one they'd found slipped inside Mr. Littlesea's office desk drawer, the drawer that they weren't supposed to go into and regularly did. It was the only treasure map that had actually ended up with them finding something, although after days of searching and faulty map reading skills, Collin hadn't thought two- five dollar bills in a shoebox had been worth the trouble. Brady had disagreed heartily.

"Hey, remember this? Your dad buried that money, didn't he?" Brady suddenly said, and at Collin's grunt of confusion, Brady tossed Collin one of the folded up pieces of paper. The reclining wolf opened it and then chuckled.

"Yeah, it looks like Dad's handwriting, although I'm pretty sure the warnings about the cliffs and the tides were all Mom," Collin chuckled. "See? She labeled Old Quil's place 'The Wastelands'. I think she was trying to keep us away from his junk shed out back."

"Junk sheds are made to be pillaged and plundered," Brady murmured their motto, pulling out the two things he'd been trying to find. They had been resting near the top.

Collin raised his fist, adding in his best pirate drawl, "Yarr, yes they do be. Old Quil will walk the plank if he keeps us from our booty."

Both snickered at that, even though they were older now. "You just always wanted to say booty, back then," Brady smirked, catching the refolded paper map that Collin threw back his way.

"I wanted to say it, I wanted to think about it, I wanted to get it," Collin agreed, finally rolling to his feet. He shot Brady a cheeky grin. "Smart little shit, wasn't I? And now that I'm the expert, if you want advice, just let me know. By the way, booty is what your ass _would_ be getting if you didn't spend a week skipping school and hiding like a little bitch from Nikki."

Brady rolled his eyes. "Dude, you gossip more than a chick. Leave me alone and focus on your own shit."

But Collin wasn't going to be dissuaded. "Hey, I'm not the one who isn't getting any cause I keep screwing things up," the higher ranked wolf said, brutal in his honesty. "What is it with this girl, man? You two are giving me relationship fucking whiplash, and I'm not even nailing either one of you."

Brady sighed in annoyance as he stood up, recognizing the tone in Collin's voice. Half the time, Collin didn't even realize he was giving orders, or making comments so close to orders that it was easier for the submissive wolves to just treat them like it.

"She wanted me to be a good boyfriend and not a shitty one, if I wanted to get with her," he admitted, hefting two small plastic things in his hand. "I didn't really get it, but Jared started in on this whole being 'physically if not emotionally available' shit, whatever that means. Took me awhile to figure out something that could work."

Collin raised an eyebrow and smirked. "So that's your plan?"

"This is my plan."

"To win the girl?"

"Or something," Brady grunted, looking at his hands. "Is this stupid? Cause it kind of seems stupid now."

The other wolf quickly shook his head, eyes sparkling with amusement that he just barely managed to keep out of his voice. "Of course not man, it's a good idea. A really good idea. Very _physically_ _available_ of you."

Nodding, a pleased expression on his face, Brady agreed. "Yeah…yeah, it is. Hey, Collin? You don't have any batteries, do you?"

* * *

><p>Nikki was supposed to meet up with Dawn and Skylar at Skylar's house, and walk with them to school the way she always did. Unfortunately she had stayed with Paul too long, so instead she was late, her hair still wet around her shoulders as she rushed to make it to school in time. Her friends were waiting for her outside the building, Skylar yawning and looking more rumpled than normal, and Dawn standing straight and properly groomed for her day of educational bliss.<p>

"Sorry, sorry!" Nikki apologized, out of breath as she hurried over. "I practiced this morning, and I lost track of time."

"You should have woken me up," Dawn told her, sounding disappointed. "I would have come with you. I barely played all summer, and it sucks to practice by yourself." Nikki flushed at that, and of course, Dawn's clever eyes caught it. "You were by yourself, weren't you?" Dawn added curiously as the three started migrating towards the front doors.

Skylar's second yawn looked slightly more interested, even if the girl's eyes were still partially shut.

Nikki adjusted her book bag on her shoulder, tugging the strap that kept sliding loose. It was a tough looking bag, not only for the fact that there were multiple holes torn in it. Kim was the artistic one in the family, but Nikki had developed a love for patches, and what didn't fit on her favorite hoodie were plastered all over her bag. Nikki was hard on her things, and the bag was no exception. Her parents had offered to buy her a new one when the bottom started to give, but Nikki hadn't wanted to move all those patches. Instead she had reinforced what she could with duct tape and called it good.

Kim had heartily approved.

Dawn's eyes were narrowed, and Skylar looked much more awake as she murmured, "Nikki's stalling."

She had their complete attention now. Nikki coughed and then decided she was better off just spilling. "I…well…I was playing with Paul Coho." At their shocked expressions, Nikki just grinned naughtily at the memory. "And yes, Dawn, before you ask. Yes, it did."

"The flexing?" Dawn breathed, and when Nikki nodded, Dawn sighed lustily. Nikki laughed as Dawn stopped just inside the doorway, causing a pileup behind them as she stared dreamily off at nothing.

Skylar paused in the doorway for camaraderie, looking over her shoulder. "Give her a minute," Skylar told the amassing students. "It's a butt thing."

Nikki snapped her fingers in front of Dawn's eyes, bringing her back to the present. "Okay, I'm all good. Hey, seriously people, stop shoving!"

As the trio made their way inside, Nikki's eyes scanned the hallway automatically, looking for tall heads and broad shoulders, ones that always stood higher than the rest of the crowd. Two such people were easily in sight at the far end of the hall, but one was conspicuously missing. Nikki's heart sank, even though her butterflies appreciated having a rest. She'd been nervous heading into school every day since she had last seen (and kissed—not that she was thinking about that) Brady Jennings.

Collin was leaning against his locker, casually flirting with a senior girl whose fortune had placed her at the locker next to his. Nikki wasn't sure if that was a blessing or a curse, because Collin's reputation preceded him wherever he went. He might have been underage, but the seventeen year old had become the unofficial player of the reservation, and everyone knew it. To Nikki, that made him less attractive. Why would anyone want to be with someone who had been with _everyone_? But not everyone viewed it that way, and the majority of the female population in the school had dreams of being the one that Collin Littlesea fell for, the one that would make him change his womanizing ways.

Nikki thought that they were going to have a long wait. Plus she wasn't convinced he didn't have crabs, even though Kim had told her he didn't.

Owen's back was pressed against the lockers on Collin's other side, the sophomore looking even more awkward than normal, his rawboned features flushing. It took Nikki a moment to figure out why, but when Collin's eyes flickered over Owen's shoulder to a pair of freshmen girls, Nikki found herself grinning along with him. One was tall with very curly hair and a nose ring, the other shorter with lighter hair, dressed head to toe in orange. Nikki didn't know Diana and Vanessa very well, but she recognized them from middle school, where the two had always been glued at the hip. At the moment the two were still glued at the hip, staring at Owen with matching expressions of longing on their faces.

It wasn't unusual for Collin and Brady to get stared at, but this was the first time she'd seen looks like _that_ directed Owen's way. And they had no idea that whatever they were saying, Owen could hear every word. By the way he was trying to squash himself against the lockers, Nikki was pretty sure that their interest was in his backside. Owen really did have a nice backside, not that Nikki noticed those kinds of things. Not that she'd ever had slow motion daydreams of Paul Coho's flexing buttocks, or Brady Jennings in skintight shorty swim shorts.

Hmmm….

"Nikki, earth to Nikki," Dawn interrupted Nikki's train of thought, just as she noticed Collin and Owen noticing her. Owen flushed darker when Nikki smiled at him and said hello. She didn't catch his softly stuttered response, but she did feel eyes boring angrily into her back as she gave Owen a little hug, and it made her grin.

"You have _admirers_," she teased him, making Owen go crimson.

"The littlest Connweller! Where's my hug?" Collin asked teasingly, snatching Nikki up by the waist and squashing her to his chest. He was massive, even bigger than Brady, and Nikki squeaked when Collin's arms crushed around her.

"Collin, get _off_ me!" Nikki growled, not feeling at all bad for banging her fist into his temple. It was something Samantha Carter had told her to do in their infrequent conversations they'd had at the end of last year, and it worked just as the older girl had said it would. And second, harder thump, and Collin winced as he set her down. "Sheesh, someone's grumpy in the mornings, Nik."

"I'm going to smell like manwhore all day now," Nikki muttered, thinking that she should have worn a different shirt. This one had fit last year, but was tight on her now, and she had to tug on it to get it back in place.

The wolf snickered, then turned his attention to Nikki's friends, who had watched the glompage in amusement. "Ladies," he said smoothly, winking at Dawn. Quil's cousin casually pulled a pencil out of her pocket and gripped it in a better defensive position, while Skylar snorted.

"Look who finally showed up today," Skylar commented, flashing the junior a feral smile. "We made sure to let everyone know about that nasty flare-up, so no one should give you any grief about missing class."

The senior, who had been looking disappointed at Collin's hugging of Nikki, suddenly went wide-eyed at the confirmation of the 'Collin Littlesea Itchy Log' rumor. She began backing away in a stealthy escape attempt. It failed as soon as Collin noticed her edging towards the classrooms. "She's joking," Collin promised the senior, moving to block her way with a well-placed smile. It might have worked if Skylar hadn't began mouthing 'we're not joking' behind his back and Dawn hadn't been making cutting motions across her neck and pointing her pencil towards Collin's junk.

He was wearing the skinny jeans again. Everyone knew _exactly_ what Dawn was referring to.

Nikki couldn't help giggling at the expression of remorse on Collin's handsome features as he turned back to them, the senior scurrying away. "That wasn't very nice, ladies. Nikki, if Brady has to be nice to them, they have to be nice to us."

"Collin, no one has to be nice to you," Nikki replied with a smirk, winking at Owen. "You're nice enough to yourself for all of us."

Owen barked out a laugh, but then quickly tried to cover it. Collin wasn't mad though, he just grinned lazily at her as the three girls continued down the hallway towards their own lockers. Nikki glanced over her shoulder, frowning as Collin leaned over and murmured something that had Owen nodding. When they both looked up at the same time, twin wolves focusing in on the same thing with matching expressions of seriousness, Nikki flushed and turned away.

"Is Brady skipping again?" she asked wonderingly.

"Hopefully," Skylar muttered, and Dawn made a tsking sound with her tongue at their slow pace. Nothing was more important to Dawn than getting her state provided proper education. Nothing.

Nikki gave Skylar a hard look. "Don't be like that, you don't even know him."

"We live in La Push, everyone here knows everyone, Nikki," Dawn countered for her friend, because Skylar was too busy trying to force her locker into opening. The lockers were getting worse every year, but it didn't look like the school would be able to fix them anytime soon.

"Have you ever talked to him?" Nikki demanded, not impressed. "Actually talked to him? Because Brady's really nice, not that you two have ever given him a chance."

"Do his guttural noises count?" Dawn asked, trying to answer fairly, but Skylar just yawned and ignored Nikki's comment.

They waited as Skylar dug through her bag, searching for something. "Dawn," she asked, pursing her lips. "Where's my list?"

"In your aquamarine binder pocket," the other girl replied. "No, the _aquamarine_ one, not the cerulean one." Skylar held up her two binders and rolled her eyes at Nikki, waggling them both Nikki's way. Nikki just shrugged. Like she had any clue the difference between aquamarine and cerulean.

"Oh sheesh, the one that looks like you folded it in half and slept on it, Skylar," Dawn replied, sighing dramatically. "I don't know why it's so hard to just _organize_ things…"

"_What_ list, Skylar?" Nikki asked suspiciously.

"The list of why you should stop pining after Brady Jennings," her two friends said in tandem.

Nikki sighed, running a hand through her hair absently. "I'm not pining," she resisted. Skylar and Dawn shared a knowing look and Nikki flushed. "Okay, I'll admit to being _distracted_, but pining is a strong verb, and I don't condone it."

As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Skylar rifled through her more-blue-than-green binder and pulled out a scrap of well-worn paper. "Number sixteen. Nikki can use 'condone' in a sentence," Skylar muttered, and Dawn snickered. Nikki wasn't amused.

"Why am I trying so hard to get him to be nice to you two, if you're just going to be jerks right back?" Nikki demanded, but Skylar had thought of number seventeen and was writing it down. Nikki tried to snatch the list away, but Skylar had superior height and was one of Embry's better students. She could duck and weave with the best of them. Nikki was pretty sure that Collin was laughing at her jumping and flailing at the list held so unkindly over her head, but Owen had his attention. Vanessa had just given Owen something before scampering away.

"I hate you," Nikki decided, giving up and letting Skylar rifle through her locker unmolested.

"We're going to find you someone else, Nikki," Dawn informed her. "Aaron said his brother should be throwing another party soon. We'll hook you up with some nice—"

"Pale," Skylar added, causing Dawn to roll her eyes before correcting herself.

"Nice _pale_ boy from Forks."

Nikki's eyes narrowed as she refused to acknowledge that comment. Recognizing the stubborn set of Nikki's shoulders, Dawn smoothly changed the subject as Skylar shut her locker and led the three towards Nikki's own. "Anyways, basketball with Paul Coho all morning long. The only way to make that better would be to add whipped cream."

"Dawn!" Nikki's face went purple, because she _knew_ Collin could hear that. Oh _hell_, he'd go right back and tell Paul, wouldn't he?

Nikki's friend continued on lost in her own version of speculative fiction. "Or was there whipped cream? If you spent a morning with Paul Coho and basketball and whipped cream and didn't invite Skylar and me—"

"Don't invite me," the leggy sophomore retorted. Skylar ran a hand through her messy hair as she walked in front of the pair. Dawn's fingers kept twitching, as if she wanted to work the tangles out, and Nikki kept smacking Dawn's hands away.

"Please, Skylar, he's _gorgeous_. Even you can't be _completely_ blind," Dawn insisted.

Skylar just shrugged lazily and rubbed a hand over her face. "I don't like his teeth," was all Skylar would say.

"What's wrong with his teeth?" Nikki wondered, thinking that Collin and Owen were too close. Too close, people! Collin's ears were almost perking in canine interest, probably at the mention of whipped dairy products and his mentor and someone other than Cassie Coho. Owen was rattling a small orange box, causing peals of giggling from his freshmen admirers.

Skylar snorted and then wheeled around, almost knocking down Dawn and causing Nikki to get an elbow in her boob. "Okay, you know how they have guys that have these straight white sparkling teeth? The ones that catch the light and gleam?"

"Oww…"

"Umm, I guess so?" Dawn replied, since Nikki was whimpering, attempting to clutch her injury in a non-dramatic way.

Skylar nodded decisively. "Yeah, I don't trust 'em. Show me a guy with sparkling teeth, and I'll show you a guy that can't be trusted. Oy! Collin! Get over here!"

Apparently Nikki gripping herself in a boobular region was enough to drag Collin's attention from Owen. Before Skylar had even spoken, Collin had already been grinning, the wolf swaggering over their way with the ever present Owen at his heels. "Yes, beautiful? What can I do for you? Hey, Nikki, if you need any first aid on that, Brady's in the restr—oomph!"

Collin grunted as Skylar grabbed his jaw and peeled his lips back. "See?" Skylar demanded, pointing at his teeth. "White and shiny. I don't trust him worth a shit."

Owen started snickering, but then Skylar leveled him with a flat glare. "Show 'em." Awkwardly Owen tried to wrinkle his lips back without obviously doing it, uncomfortable with the idea of showing his teeth them, especially Nikki: the sister of a Packmate.

Skylar hummed and then nodded. "Not as sparkly. Good to know. Ladies, if we sleep with any of them, we sleep with that one."

Someone laughed from behind Nikki, and she looked over her shoulder. Callie Jennings was standing there, smirking at Collin and Owen. "She called it, Collin," Callie chuckled, walking past and deliberately eyeing Owen. The young wolf flushed from the roots of his hair to the tips of his fingers. "Hey Owen, want to come over to my place after school today?"

Even Nikki could hear Diana's horrified gasp from down the hall, followed by Vanessa randomly falling over.

Collin growled, a warning sound that made Nikki stiffen at the harshness of it, but Collin wasn't growling at Owen. "Leave him alone, Callie," Collin warned her, and Callie raised an eyebrow, staring down Collin challengingly.

Nikki wasn't a coward, but there was something about the female wolf that unnerved her. It had been hard to be near Leah and Sims, although back then Nikki hadn't known why. Callie was no different, and it didn't help that Collin was matching Callie's challenging look with one of his own, as if the two were playing a silent tug of war with their egos right in the middle of the hallway. Dawn and Skylar had both shifted backwards, deeply uncomfortable. Callie unnerved them too.

"Collin," Nikki heard herself say, and those eyes swung her way. Nikki felt herself shrink backward from the look he gave her, and then Callie snickered, mimicking Nikki in a breathy, whiny voice.

"_No, Collin. Please, Collin_. Right _there_, Collin. Brady won't know, Collin, I _promise_ I won't tell him."

"Hey!" the sophomore snapped at the she-wolf. "I never did anything with Collin!" Nikki was pissed at the accusation, and horrified at the thought that Brady would believe it.

"You were in his room, weren't you?" Callie challenged, ignoring Collin's warning hand on her arm, and his mutter for her to quit it.

Nikki flushed bright red, hissing, "Yes, but I was there with _Brady_."

"Oh, you hooked up with _Brady_ at _Collin's_, gotcha. Those two are always together, it's hard to know who's doing what to whom," Callie winked, her voice carrying into the grouped students. Callie ignored Skylar and Dawn's angry glares. "Sorry, Connweller, my mistake."

Nikki flushed even darker, mortified. It was one thing to make out with a boy after school—it was another to have the whole school think you were sleeping with him and his best friend at the same time. She never heard or felt anyone move up behind her, but suddenly Brady was there, his fingertips brushing her wrist as he stepped close to her back.

"You know, Callie, just because _you're_ a whore doesn't mean everyone else is," Brady spoke harshly, and to Nikki's shock his arm went around her waist in front of the whole school. "Unlike Collin, I _don't_ share my things."

It was Callie's turn to flush, and she opened her mouth to lash out at Brady. Then she snapped her mouth closed and shot Collin a murderous glare before turning and stalking away. Collin rolled his eyes and gave Brady an annoyed look.

"Thanks for that, buddy," Collin muttered before hustling off after Callie. Owen, looking torn for a moment, decided to go drink from the water fountain. Profusely.

"I'm not your thing," Nikki mumbled as the bell suddenly rang, pulling away from Brady's hold and heading towards her first period classroom. It wasn't his fault that she was humiliated, but his way of supporting her didn't make her feel a damn bit better. "I'm not anyone's _thing_."

Brady just looked after her with dark eyes and said nothing.

* * *

><p>Collin caught up with Callie around the corner, mostly because she knew he was chasing her, and she felt like getting caught.<p>

"What, did you make sure to drink your bitch juice this morning before school?" Collin asked sarcastically, snagging Callie by the arm and tugging her into the library. In a school this small, they didn't keep a full time librarian on staff, instead having several of the teachers take turns running the room. At the moment it was empty, the lights still turned out, and Collin drew Callie back behind the door so no one looking in the window could see them.

Callie sighed in irritation and shook her hair back from her face. "What? The Connwellers annoy me, and Jake said to lay off Brady today. I was trying to be nice."

"By making the school think she's a slut?" Collin growled. "Yeah, that's really nice, Cal. Remind me to stay on your bad side." He inhaled deeply, and then looked at her, hurt. "You smell like Jake."

She smelled like arousal and Jake, actually, which was why it bothered him. The she-wolf shrugged, rolling her eyes. "Whatever Collin, I'll do what I want. Who I want, as often as I want." He grimaced at that, looking jealous and pissed, but Callie didn't care. He messed around with whoever he wanted to, and she didn't give him shit for it.

"And don't worry, I won't fuck with Connweller _too_ much," Callie conceded in an attempt to be good natured.

When she went to move away, Collin put a hand on either side of her shoulders. She growled in annoyance, shoving him to the side. It worked, up until the point that Collin's eyes flashed with that dangerous fire that so few of the Pack had ever seen. This time he slammed her back into the wall, muscles flexing to hold her there. She liked rough, it turned her on, and he knew it. The good thing about Collin was that he could always be counted on to turn her on. It was what they both wanted.

Callie's eyes were gleaming in interest when Collin ducked his head down to her height, growling into her ear. "Seriously, leave her alone."

"It's not like I hit her or anything," Callie smirked. "I was just clarifying why I could smell her all over your sheets. I get jealous and all that shit."

Collin snorted as if he didn't buy it. "_Right_, Callie. You just wanted to embarrass her, and you did. So lay off her now, okay? It puts me and Brady in the middle, on opposite sides."

"You know, Kim _humiliated_ Derek in school, so I think it's only fair that Nikki takes some shit in return," Callie told him. "Would you rather me give Jared's precious _Kim_ hell? At least little sister has some grit and can take it."

"That's stupid, and that's vindictive," Collin muttered unhappily. The male wolf made a frustrated noise, and then pushed himself off of her. "I _know_ you're not mean, Callie. Not the way you want everyone to believe. Is it so hard to just try to let them see the nicer you?"

Callie looked away, her eyes hard. Collin wasn't Jake, but he wasn't too bad. He was attractive, and he was good in bed, and he didn't mind that she could be bitchy…normally. But she hated that part of him that had to leap to the rescue of whoever was in the room. It was annoying, and it bothered her even more that Collin actually meant it. He wanted to protect everyone, even her. Callie didn't need protecting. No, she was fully capable of doing that all by herself.

What she wasn't capable of doing by herself, well, she was willing to have Collin step in. Since Jake had a _girlfriend_.

"This is me, Collin," Callie shrugged, but then she tipped her head up to his. Her fingers slid deeply into his front pockets, and she eyed him with thinly veiled interest. "Take it or leave it."

One of these days the guy was going to be smart enough to walk away. Even Callie knew that he had more to give than just a good romp between the sheets, but Collin didn't seem to get it yet. Today was obviously not that day. Instead he growled lightly and slanted his mouth across hers, one hand sliding beneath her shirt as the other unsnapped her jeans. This time Collin was the one that got slammed into a wall, as Callie attacked his mouth hungrily.

Like he had been doing for months now, Collin chose to take.

* * *

><p>Mr. Finnel was not impressed at Collin's and Brady's absences. He also wasn't particularly surprised.<p>

"You're behind," was all the history teacher said when the two wandered into the room, Owen at their heels. As always they were the last ones in, and Collin shot the teacher a bright grin as he headed for his seat. Brady just shrugged, as if he couldn't care less.

Owen tried not to knock into anyone's legs or arms as he made his way down the aisle to his seat, unable to do so without looking like he was about to fall on his nose, and Nikki couldn't help but feel badly for him. Most of the students in that aisle were sophomores and they knew Owen was clumsy. Owen was just trying not to hurt anyone, but the class was bumping into him on purpose. A few of them were already snickering.

It bothered Collin too, but Collin's way of dealing with it was looking at Owen and freezing the younger wolf with his gaze. "Hey, Owen. The rest of them that don't move, just kick them out of your way," Collin growled, eyeing the class with a baleful look. Odd how fast the aisle suddenly cleared.

Brady said nothing, but he did stare down the ones that were laughing, face bleak. Brady rarely looked happy, but he seemed especially angry that day. He sat down heavily in his chair, but he did turn around and look at her. He didn't say anything, but Nikki could count on her fingers how often last year she had seen Brady acknowledge the people around him. The young wolf grunted a kind of greeting that she was pretty sure was supposed to be a hello. Brady hunched deeper into his seat, trying to make himself more comfortable in the confined area, and Nikki took pity on him, scooting her desk back the few inches it would go.

"There's more room," she barely whispered, knowing Brady would hear her, and he shot her an appreciative look over his shoulder as he scooted his own desk back towards hers.

"We'll be working in pairs on the chapter two assignment today," Mr. Finnel instructed as he counted out sheets of blue paper to send down each row of students. "Use your books for reference, and keep the socializing to a minimum. This is history, people, not current—"

"Not current events," Collin chuckled loudly enough that Mr. Finnel could hear. The teacher glowered at him, but Collin just beamed back brightly. "Just appreciating your sense of humor, sir," Collin promised. Unlike Brady, Collin seemed in a suspiciously good mood.

"Jennings, Littlesea, work with someone else _but_ each other," Mr. Finnel added, shaking his head as he returned to his desk. "Connweller, Ateara, try not to run from the room screaming. We've had that happen before, and I already have a headache."

Nikki and Dawn shared a look, and then snickered, at least until Dawn realized she was paired with Collin. The dominant wolf swung around in his seat, grinning at her sexily. "Hey."

Her fingers tightened on her pencil, but Nikki could see Dawn's cheeks redden. Then Nikki was preoccupied by a certain someone turning around as well, just as uncomfortable sitting sideways as he was sitting normally. This time Nikki was the one that murmured, "Hey," and Brady gave her a hopeful look. It took her a moment to figure out, but it occurred to Nikki that she had snapped at him this morning, and he thought she was mad at him.

"Hey, I'm sorry if I was a dick—"

"I'm sorry I was a bitch—"

They both spoke at the same time, and stopped. Then Brady gave her a rueful grimace. "I'm sorry I called you mine. You're not." That stung, and Nikki tried like hell to not let her hurt show through.

"Yeah, you've been pretty consistent about making that clear," she said, her voice coming out more harshly sarcastic than she had meant it to.

Brady looked confused, and then he grunted, clarifying. "No, I meant that you're not a _thing_. You're a…person…"

She didn't answer right away, but when Brady shifted uncomfortably, Nikki relented. "It's okay," she said in a softer voice. "I was just pissed at Callie, and I just don't want people to think…I don't know. That I'm easy."

"They don't," Brady assured her instantly, for once saying the right thing at the right time.

It might have been a first for him, but unfortunately Collin ruined it by adding, "Or at least they _won't_. Not when Brady's through."

"You can't make rumors disappear like that, Collin," Nikki said, still angry about what Callie had insinuated. "People will think—"

Collin cut her off smoothly. "People will think what we tell them to. A few busted heads and they'll think you're…huh…Brade, what's the opposite of easy?"

That took him a moment, but then Brady offered up, "Hard?"

"Yeah. That's you're hard. Wait, that doesn't sound right…"

Dawn's pencil lead snapped, and she sat up primly, looking at Collin as she clicked it for more lead. "Out of curiosity, the primordial soup that spawned you two…is it in La Push? Or somewhere else?"

"You're feisty," Collin chuckled, leaning over and folding his attractively muscled arms on Dawn's desk. "I like that about you. What are you doing this weekend, Ateara?"

"Excuse me?" Dawn was staring at Collin as if he'd grown a second nose. Dawn wasn't bad looking, but Collin went for the best looking girls first, and then moved on the not as good looking ones only if the first ones shot him down. There were at least five or six girls in the class that he normally would have asked out first, and even Brady seemed surprised.

"We could go somewhere, maybe even up to Seattle for the art museums. I hear they've added some new pieces to the _Burden Of History_ exhibit at the SAM. Or maybe go see a play?"

Dawn blinked, startled. "A play? Collin, I highly doubt that—"

"Twelve Angry Men or Death of A Salesman, it's your pick, beautiful. They're both playing and I've seen each twice."

The sophomore was obviously thrown off of her guard because her expression turned wistful. They could all see the longing in her eyes, and Collin smiled at her before moving in for the kill. "You don't have to like school to be cultured, Dawn," he said sexily, voice curling around her name, eyes locking with hers. "The soup that spawned me is much more refined than you think. How about this, museum first, then the play and dinner. I promise I won't embarrass you, or tell you how it ends."

Nikki just stared. Collin was _good_. He had hit Dawn exactly where she was vulnerable, had complimented her looks while appealing to her love of all things educational, and had zeroed in on her weakness, what she wanted most. And that smile…that was just…_dangerous_.

"He has sparkly teeth!" Skylar suddenly cried, waving her hands to try and get Dawn's attention. "Don't look directly at the teeth!"

"You have a _boyfriend_," Nikki added quickly, knowing that it wasn't a particularly good reason. Would Dawn cheat on Aaron? No. Would she dump him for the theatre? You betcha.

Collin knew he had won, and the victory gleamed in his eyes. "Saturday morning, pick you up at eight?" he asked smoothly. "Bring the boyfriend if art is his thing too."

The likelihood that art was any guy's thing was low, and Collin was ballsy. Nikki had met Aaron, and while he was a smart guy, he was scientifically oriented, not artistically. Aaron would only go to an art museum if someone paid him to. Plus the other sophomore didn't have a license and didn't have a car. Dawn was trying to resist, but she'd forgotten she was clicking her pencil, and lead was falling piece after piece out of the end. Nikki's friend opened her mouth—

"Collin Littlesea, you are **not** sleeping with my friend!" Nikki cried, her voice carrying across the classroom. Perhaps it had been a little too loudly spoken. Nikki squeaked, horrified as everyone in the class stared at her, and then suddenly Brady burst out laughing.

Mr. Finnel just groaned and hid his face in his hands, saying, "Connweller, I'm going to pretend you didn't say that."

Mortified, Nikki tried to sink deeper in her chair, not even trying as Collin leaned back in towards Dawn. Thankfully Brady stepped in in Nikki's place. "Dude, leave her alone, she's got a boyfriend," Brady chuckled, nailing Collin in the knee with a well-aimed kick.

"I have a boyfriend," Dawn repeated, shaking herself out of her daze. "And you…"

"Have sparkly teeth," Skylar prompted, her calculator ready in her hand in case she needed to drive off the sexy wolf that was snickering in his seat.

"…have sparkly teeth," Dawn finished. "So I…no. Just…no." Then her eyes narrowed, and Dawn was back in the present. "You're leaning on our assignment. You're _wrinkling_ it."

Wrinkling Dawn's assignments were on her list of things that earned her complete and utter wrath, and Collin Littlesea was no exception. Dawn began giving Collin hell, which the young wolf took in good-natured stride, conceding defeat and not looking particularly upset at getting rejected.

Nikki turned her attention back to the assignment, wondering if she should bother to ask Brady to help her. He had missed the reading the worksheet was on, and he wasn't even looking at it. Instead he was watching her, something that was making Nikki extremely self-conscious. Nikki had the same wispy hair that Kim did, but she had a lot of it. Usually she pulled part of it back, but she'd not had enough time today. Tendrils kept falling across her face, making it hard to see, and Nikki had to push them back from her eyes over and over. One stubborn strand refused to stay tucked behind her ear, and Nikki gritted her teeth in irritation.

"Stupid hair," Nikki growled under her breath, and the wolf in front of her chuckled. She looked up at him in askance, and Brady smiled slightly. Maybe it wasn't a smile…maybe he just looked less grim.

"Kim," he said, as if that was all he needed to explain. Nikki quirked her own not quite smile. The Connweller females never had lucked out in the tamable hair department.

It was awkward working with Brady, because she kept wanting to ask him things. She wanted to ask him if he was mad at her for last week. She wanted to ask him if he was okay…after what Paul had implied that morning, she had been worrying about him. She wanted to ask him what the answer to number six was, but he still wasn't paying any attention.

"It's Portugal."

"Huh?" Nikki looked up from the paper, confused.

"The answer to that is Portugal," Brady repeated, tapping his thumb against the paper. "I remember it from two years ago."

Nikki nodded and dutifully wrote down Portugal. She didn't have the heart to tell Brady that she was pretty sure that Portugal had never been a part of the Soviet Union, but she wasn't going to embarrass him. Especially not when he looked so proud of himself for contributing. Over to the side Nikki heard Collin starting to argue with Dawn that she needed to change the answer for number six, because Dawn was definitely wrong. Off to the side, Skylar made a happy noise as Owen pulled out a small orange colored box of chocolates and shyly offered her some. He didn't know the answers either, but he was trying. As long as Skylar was being fed, she was content to sit back and only minimally participate.

"Brady? Why did Collin ask her out?" Nikki asked as quietly as she could, knowing her friends were distracted. "He doesn't even like her, does he?"

Brady shrugged. "Doesn't mean he couldn't like her. She's seemed like a challenge, probably." Nikki felt a flash of resentment towards Brady's best friend, but she was distracted by Brady shifting in closer, looking at her worriedly. "Hey Nik?"

"Yeah?"

The tentative tone in his voice pulled at her, and she tried not to acknowledge how cute she found it when he began running a hand over his wrist cuff nervously. "You know the other day? Well, I didn't quite…ugh. I just didn't get it, really. But I'm trying to get it…and…this is stupid but I…uhh…brought you something," Brady mumbled, shoving across the desk.

Nikki looked up at him, curiosity in her eyes as she took the proffered gift. It was a small plastic toy, scratched and battered and bright yellow. "A walkie talkie?"

"Yeah," the handsome wolf muttered, looking embarrassed. "I don't have a phone, and I'm not at your sister's place as much as you think. A lot of nights I'm—just around." Brady stopped and then cleared his throat. "Anyways, it has pretty good range. Collin always got cool stuff, and we've been able to get them to work from a couple miles away. I'll leave mine on all the time, so that way, you can…you know. If you want…"

He trailed off, and Nikki waited for him to finish. When he didn't she supplied quietly, "So I can call you?"

The wolf nodded, resting his arms on her desk the way Collin had Dawn's. Only instead of leaning over and in, taking a dominant position like Collin, Brady hunkered down, leaning on his arms so that his head was at the same height as hers. The set of his shoulders changed, and Nikki had the impression that he was trying very hard to look non-threatening. Almost as if he was trying to appeal to her, to keep in her good favor.

"I'll leave it on all the time," Brady promised in his low rough voice. "I set it to the channel for you, but if it gets knocked off, I keep mine on channel three. If you want it, that's is. If you don't, whatever." He tried to play it off like it was no big deal, but Nikki could see that he was worried she wouldn't want it.

Nikki felt a wash of warmth at the gesture, and she found that she was smiling at him. The young woman leaned in unthinkingly and pressed her lips to his. It was only when she had already committed to the kiss that she realized what she was doing, kissing Brady Jennings _in class_. Nikki quickly pulled back, casting her eyes around nervously to see if anyone had seen. By the look of annoyed resignation on Dawn's face, and the broad grin on Collin's, at least two people did.

Skylar was oblivious, Owen wide-eyed as he watched her consume another piece of chocolate with a throaty moan.

But it didn't matter, because when Nikki looked back at him, all she could see was Brady. Nikki hadn't realized how hard his eyes had been before, not until she saw how they had softened now. The smooth leather of his cuff brushed her jaw as he reached over and touched her hair with his large fingertips, carefully tucking a strand behind her ear. Then Mr. Finnel had to ruin it by clearing his throat pointedly. Brady's made a face of such annoyance that Nikki couldn't help but giggle, and he flashed her one of those rare grins of his.

His teeth were white and sparkly too. As Nikki blushed and bit her lower lip, turning back to their assignment, she decided her friends didn't need to know that.

* * *

><p>English was Nikki's last class of the day, and it was a class she absolutely detested. She never had understood why someone who spoke English still had to learn it, when they obviously already knew it.<p>

Her school disagreed.

They were already assigned a research project, and the class had holed up in the library, combing through the minimal resources to find books on their self-selected topics. They had been allowed to pick anything they wanted, but Nikki hadn't particularly cared either way. Dawn, still shaken from her "near-Collined" experience, was having a hard time deciding between the hardships of rural Alaskan living and the migratory patterns of some kind of bird Nikki had never heard of.

Inspired by Dawn's indecision, Skylar was writing hers on birdseed.

Seated at a table off to the side, Nikki palmed through a book about supernatural monsters. "Hey Owen, how about this?" she asked her table partner, who was struggling as much as she was with picking a topic. Nikki waggled her page at him, and Owen looked up. Wolf eyes could see incredibly well, but that didn't mean he could suddenly read better. When she realized he was struggling with what she was holding, Nikki handed the book over to him. Owen's lips moved as he sounded out the words in his head, and then he grinned.

"I think th-that's cheating, Nikki," Owen stuttered, but he looked amused. "Maybe N-ness would write it f-for me. She'd know more about th-that."

He handed her the book back, and Nikki sighed, closing it on the page marked 'vampirism'. Nikki had met the half-vampire imprint at Paul's wedding, but hadn't known what Renesmee was at the time. Nikki had only remembered that Renesmee had been a stunningly beautiful, and that Nikki had found it strange that a Caucasian child had been there with a Quileute man she'd never seen. In hindsight, Nikki wondered if she should have been frightened, being so close to a vampire as she had been.

"What's she like?" Nikki couldn't help but ask.

An expression of pride crossed over Owen's face, mixed with fondness. "Sweet," he said, and then the pride overwhelmed the fondness. "Strong."

Nikki knew from experience that when Owen went into one word answers, it was because he was having a harder day than normal. She nodded at his answer, letting him go back to his reading, leaving him be.

Her mind drifted, remembering the day of Paul's wedding, and the first time a boy had ever sat next to her and asked her to dance with him. She remembered being stunned, being elated, her stomach filled with butterflies as she tried not to say or do anything stupid. She remembered thinking it was sweet how nervous Brady had been. She drifted more, off in a daydream where there were no vampires or shape shifters, only handsome boys and bonfires, afternoon kisses in bedrooms and holding hands in front of the television. And then maybe afterward…

Nikki was half asleep in her chair when suddenly the walkie talkie in her pocket sputtered in horrifyingly loud static. She squeaked and lunged for her book bag, where she had tucked her gift in the earlier class period. Panicking, Nikki began twisting things until the static softened.

"Nikki? This is Brady, over."

"Brady, I'm in the _library_," Nikki hissed into her walkie talkie, turning her shoulder so that her teacher wouldn't see.

There was nothing from the other end, and then she heard Brady's and Collin's voices jumbled together. "Dude, I'm not sure it works. I _told_ you not to use the crappy batteries in hers!" mixed with, "Tell her to press the bigger button, Brade, she's not pressing the bigger button."

She was pressing a button, just the wrong one. Switching buttons before Brady had a chance to make more noise, she lifted the walkie talkie to her mouth. "Brady, I'm in the _library_," Nikki half-squeaked into the walkie talkie. "_We're still in class_."

"…Over."

"Huh?"

"You're supposed to say 'We're still in class, over.' Over." He sounded much too proud of the fact that he knew the rules. Nikki cast a look at Dawn, who was giving her a disapproving glance. Skylar, however, was laughing her ass off.

Nikki tried to duck under the table, in the pretense of rummaging through her things. She'd never had such a close up view of Owen's knees before. "Brady, I'm in the library, and we're still in class, _over_. Call me _later_."

"Over."

"_Over_!"

She twisted the walkie talkie off, so that she wouldn't get into trouble. However a smile had spread across her face, and as she slumped into her seat, Nikki couldn't keep her smile from turning into a stupid grin. She looked around, eyeing the room, and then couldn't help herself. Nikki stood up and caught her English teacher's eye.

"I'm going to go look for a book on a different topic," she told the older woman, who was looking pale and drawn from a bad head cold. Nikki was waved off with a flapping hand, and a nose being blown rather violently.

Nikki slipped into the back of the library, as far away from the rest of the students as she could, and then she turned the walkie talkie onto the lowest setting that she could still hear. "Brady?"

There was static. Nikki waited, feeling disappointed, before trying again. "Brady? Brady, are you still there?" More static, but then Nikki narrowed her eyes. "_Over_."

"Brady here, over."

He was chuckling into the walkie talkie, and Nikki couldn't help herself. She started to giggle. "You and Collin caused hell with these things when you were younger, didn't you? Over."

"I plead the Fifth, over."

There was a moment of quietness, and then Brady started to say her name. "Nikki—" She suddenly heard Collin hissing in the background and Brady cursed. "Hostile party incoming! Incoming! Brady, over and out."

The walkie talkie hissed in static again and then went silent. Nikki burst out laughing.

"Miss Connweller, I hope you've found that book," her teacher called out, and Nikki yelped, grabbing the closest one at hand.

Brady was waiting for her after class at her locker, having apparently been blessed with a study hall that was easier to sneak out of than a library. Nikki raised her book up and pointed to it, giving him a death glare. "See what you started, Brady?"

Dawn and Skylar took one look at the growling, book brandishing Nikki and then wisely snuck away. Collin, having nothing better to do at the time, grabbed Owen's arm and cheerfully began to sneak after them. "I have to do a report on this shit, I hope you know."

"You're doing a report on _milking cows_." The bastard had the audacity to look amused.

"It's not my _fault_, Brady," Nikki growled, tossing her book at him. He was nice enough to let it hit his stomach before catching it. "It's _your_ fault, you and your walkie talkie! And you're going to help me."

"I don't know anything about milking cows," Brady admitted, lounging against the lockers next to hers. He looked far too comfortable, and far too pleased with himself. "Except for the whole tugging on the teat thing."

Nikki turned crimson at that, and when Brady realized what he had said, he coughed uncomfortably. "Ahh…yeah…"

Groaning, Nikki closed her locker and then grabbed her book back. She tossed it at Brady's stomach a second time as she began walking from the building, thinking she was going to catch up with Dawn and Skylar.

"Hey, what it is with you Connweller women?" Brady asked plaintively. "You're always throwing things." She made a face at him, and Brady smirked, reaching over and snagging her book bag off her shoulder. "Wow, Nik…even I have a better bag than this. Is that duct tape?"

"What are you doing?" Nikki asked suspiciously, but Brady merely shrugged.

"Stealing your ammunition. And walking you home."

She blinked at him, startled, and Brady grunted. "Whatever. I'm just walking you home. Doesn't mean I'm proposing or anything." Nikki narrowed her eyes at his dismissive tone, but then she saw that he had a little smile playing around his lips.

He was teasing her.

"Doesn't mean I'd say yes," Nikki countered with her own smirk, retaliating by hooking her foot around his ankle in a half-hearted attempt to trip him. Brady was too coordinated for that, but he did growl playfully, hooking her arm in his and pulling her flush against his front side. Brady continued stalking forward, his thighs pressing against hers, and Nikki had to walk backwards to accommodate him. She laughed when she almost tripped, but his hands had found her waist and when she stumbled, those hands tightened. Brady obviously had no intention of letting her fall.

Brady moved in closer, his forehead against hers, and it occurred to Nikki that she was being backed into something. Her shoulder blades bumped the street sign that said it was a school zone, Brady leaning into her when she did. Immediately his scent washed over her, and Nikki inhaled instinctively. She loved how he smelled. It was far too distracting. So were his hands on her sides, big and warm and careful. But when he dipped his head in to kiss her, Nikki pushed at his shoulders.

"Brady, half the school can see us," she reminded him, turning bright red.

"So?"

He obviously didn't care a whit, and Nikki found herself laughing at that too. "So, we're not even…I'm not suddenly going to be…Brady!" She was collapsing into giggles as his fingers drifted up to tickle her sides. She tried to duck away, but he had her trapped, and he seemed far too happy to have her there. But when he tried to kiss her a second time, and she pushed on his chest to stop him, Brady's expression changed to one of confusion and defensiveness.

"What?"

"Brady, I really like you, but you blew me off this whole _last_ week too," Nikki told him, looking down at her feet. "Thank you for the walkie talkie, I like that. But I'm _not_ going to mess around with you just because you finally feel like talking to me today."

Understanding dawned in his eyes, and when he gazed down at her, looking almost sympathetic, Nikki felt the weight of her inexperience on her shoulders. Was that stupid? Had she said the wrong thing?

"It's not like that," Brady told her, his fingers weaving through hers. "Me and you…it's not like that. It just took me awhile to decide what to do about what you said."

Nikki bit her lip. Paul's words of warning were in the back of her head, a little Paul wolf on her shoulder yapping in her ear. Hell, she had seen Collin wrap Dawn around his finger in the span of three minutes. But she _knew_ Brady was a good guy. Nikki wanted the whole world to know Brady was a good guy too.

"Nik? You don't actually think that shit, do you?" She still had the walkie talkie in her jeans pocket, and Brady tapped both of their fingers against the square bulge it made in the fabric. "You think I'd give 24/7 access to someone I just wanted to hook up with?" he asked her in a quiet voice, and Nikki flushed, feeling stupid again.

"I guess not," Nikki admitted, ignoring the tiny wolf teeth digging into her earlobe. "Sorry, Brady."

He just shrugged like it didn't matter. "Don't worry about it. Come on."

Brady had told her that he was walking her home, but as they headed down the street, still holding hands, Nikki realized that he was dragging his feet, trying to draw it out. Dragging his feet became taking the longer route, and the longer route became not heading home at all. Not heading home at all became wandering up the rockier part of the coastline, climbing over downed limbs and large boulders, and listening to the waves crashing against the cliffs below. Brady let go of her hand and chose to lob stones into the ocean instead. Nikki played around by balancing on fallen rotting tree branches, wiggling to make them roll.

Eventually they came to a massive boulder, which had once been a part of the steep landform behind them, the piece of rock not quite having made it into the ocean after it had broken free. Since Nikki had found herself another, larger branch to balance on, Brady stretched up a hand to grab the top of the boulder and swung himself up. He probably could have jumped it if he'd wanted to, but Brady didn't do that stuff around her. Except for the day where everyone had phased right at her feet, Brady had never done that stuff around her.

As she gave up on her branch—it wouldn't roll to her satisfaction—Nikki closed her eyes as the breeze brushed over her feature, cooling her cheeks and her lips. "It's going to get cold tonight," she murmured absently, leaning against the boulder.

Brady eyed her from his greater height before grunting in acceptance. "I'll take your word on it," he said with a shrug. "Doesn't matter much to us, we stay pretty warm all the time. We only feel the cold or the heat if we're hurt really badly, or if we're really old. Jack gets cold sometimes."

Nikki looked at him in askance. "Kim told me about Jack. He's one of the ones that are gone, right?"

Brady settled down onto the rock, kicking his shoes from of his feet and peeling his socks off. "Yeah…" It was obviously something that he didn't want to talk about because he didn't explain any further. Then suddenly Brady leaned over so he was closer to the spot directly above her.

"Want up here with me?" Brady asked, leaning down and offering her his hand. For a moment, Nikki just looked at that hand, so much larger, so very different from her own. She was so short, she'd still have to jump to reach it.

"I might not have super powers," Nikki told him, winking at Brady and ignoring his hand. "But I kick ass at climbing."

Brady smirked at that and dropped his hand. "You don't like getting help, do you?"

"Not for things I can do myself," the young woman shrugged, finding a shallow crevice in the rock, one that would function as a handhold. Brady watched her as she climbed. To his credit, he didn't try to help when she started to slip, instead choosing to watch as Nikki found a different way up. For as large as the boulder was, it was narrower at the top, and even with Brady scooting over to make room, Nikki had to sit with her hip nearly brushing his. It was hard to be this close to the wolf without blushing, and Nikki grew shy and quiet, not willing to make a fool of herself. Silently she watched streams of blue ripple across the ocean, beautiful and serene.

Nikki drew her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around her legs. She rested her head on her arms, enjoying this moment here, with him.

"What was Florida like?"

Nikki glanced over at Brady. He was sitting with his head bowed, not seeming to see the view off in the distance. Instead he was staring at the rock beneath him, unable to look past where he was at and what he was doing.

"It was warm," Nikki shrugged, and then she smiled a little. "It was nice, I guess. We were right on the beach, and every morning I would walk to this coffee shop nearby. The waitress was really sweet, and she would tell me the best places to go in town."

"You got a tan," Brady murmured, his eyes grazing along her arms. "You're as dark as I am now."

Nikki bumped her arm against his. "Running with the cool kids, am I?"

He chuckled and then she noticed that somehow Brady's hand was brushing hers. It was so tempting to slip her fingers back between his, but he had always taken that step between them. She must have been staring at his fingers longingly, because he sighed, flicking her thumbnail with his pinkie. "Do I really have to be nice to your friends, Nik?" Brady asked, sounding plaintive. "Dawn's annoying, and Skylar…she's just a freak."

That earned him a thump on his arm, and _no_ hand holding.

"Dawn might be willing to trade a boyfriend for a museum trip, but she's the most loyal friend I have ever had," Nikki declared fiercely, narrowing her eyes at Brady. "And Skylar has my back no matter what. Sorry, Brady, but they were here first. They win, not you."

Brady seemed briefly annoyed at that, and then he sighed. "How about I only be nice to one of them, and you can treat Collin like he's an asshole?" the wolf offered hopefully.

"No. All or nothing. Take it or leave it."

"At least when Callie says it, Collin gets something out of it," Brady muttered. Nikki flushed at that, and then found herself growing angry.

"My friends are non-negotiable, Brady," Nikki told him heatedly, her eyes flashing as she stood up and glared down at him. "I'm not going to abandon them just because some _guy_ doesn't like them. And for the record, if you're looking to _get something_ out of this, then find another rock, asshole."

Brady looked up at her, a smug and infuriating expression spreading across his face. "I was here first," he reminded her. "It's my rock."

She shouldn't have done it, but the angle was right and he really had it coming. Plus, she knew it couldn't really hurt him anyways, so without any further ado, Nikki Connweller kicked Brady Jennings off his rock.

It was a defining moment in their relationship.

She had obviously taken him by surprise, because her solid kick to his chest knocked him off balance, straight off of the massive boulder, and Brady ended up on his back in the sand. For a moment embarrassed anger flashed over his face, but Nikki was glaring at him, teeth gritted.

"Fine. Now it's _my_ rock, and you have to be nice to it too."

Brady stood slowly, and then suddenly he grinned, a dangerously sexy grin that said she was in trouble. When she realized that he was about to lunge, Nikki bailed. Skidding off the rock was a lot faster that climbing up it, although she'd have a scrape on her knee from banging it against the ground. The young woman scrambled to her feet and abandoned her book bag, figuring if she survived, she could always come get it later, and if she didn't…well, there was no point.

Nikki was quick on her feet, and she made it about twenty yards down the coast before Brady's arms caught her about the waist, lifting her off her feet. Nikki let out a shriek as he swung her over his shoulder and spun her around a few times to make her dizzy. With an oomph, Nikki found herself on her back in the grass.

"Whose rock was that again?" he asked her, grinning as he straddled her and began tickling her mercilessly. Outweighed and outmatched, Nikki still gave it her best attempt, flailing and kicking and trying to bite his thumbs.

"My rock! It's my rock!" she cried, tears streaming from her eyes as she writhed with laughter. "Death before regime change!"

Brady barked out a laugh and sat back on his heels, grinning wolfishly down at her. "What does that even mean?" he asked, shaking his head in amusement. Nikki suddenly widened her eyes and pointed behind his shoulder.

"Look over there! Quick!"

He whipped around so fast it was a blur, but somehow she still had enough time to free herself and scramble to her feet, making a mad dash for the boulder. Nikki couldn't climb it quickly enough, so she jerked off her tennis shoe and tossed it up on top, right about the time Brady had her again. "It's mine, mine!" Nikki declared triumphantly, pointing at the upside-down sneaker on top of the boulder. "I claim first shoeage!"

Brady had her by the hips again, his forehead almost touching hers as he pressed her into the rocky surface behind her. The smile on his face was so full of amusement and affection that it transformed his features. He would always look rough, but in that moment, he was rough but beautiful.

"I won," Nikki breathed again, her voice softer as she realized how close they were again. "I'm awesome."

"You're cocky, and I let you win," Brady teased her back, but before she could argue, Brady gripped her tighter and hoisted her up. Her arms flailed for purchase as she found herself deposited up top again. Like this her feet were shoulder-level with the standing wolf.

"Your rock," Brady conceded with a chuckle, his hands wrapping around her ankles, his thumbs rubbing her skin lightly. "Your friends. If I'm nice to them, then what do _I_ get?"

Brady wasn't being suggestive, he just sounded curious. Nikki considered it, and then kicked her right toes playfully into his shoulder. "My remaining shoe?"

"Won't fit," he decided, looking amused. "Although you do have big feet for a girl." Nikki stuck her tongue out at him and may have kicked his shoulder a little harder. Brady smirked and tugged her sneaker free of her heel. "Fine, I'll take the shoe, but I'm getting a shitty bargain here."

Shoe in hand, Brady seemed content to mess with her toes, tugging them hard enough that she had to work to keep herself from getting dragged off of her kingdom. As the sun began to sink below the treeline, it became clear that her sock was his too, and her pinkie toe had come under foreign possession. They didn't talk much, Nikki didn't know what to say and Brady wasn't the type to fill the silence, but she didn't mind. Nikki liked being around Brady, liked the feeling his presence gave her.

After a while, Nikki started to get the impression that Brady was waiting for something, although she couldn't say how she knew. Maybe because the longer they stayed there, the more uncomfortable he became, like he was getting restless, or worried.

"You have to patrol tonight, right?"

Brady nodded, distracted by her calves. "Yeah, at six. Collin, Callie, and I usually run the six to midnight patrols cause of school. Owen pulls three to nines instead, cause of his parents, and sometimes Collin too when his mom starts tripping."

"At least Jared and Kim understand," Nikki commented casually, before suddenly feeling a wash of guilt. "Oh hey, you don't have to stay here with me. If you don't eat before patrol, you'll be starving by midnight, huh?" Brady's hand stilled, no longer contemplating strategic positioning near her kneecap. He just grunted non-committedly. Nikki glanced at her worn Mikelangelo the Ninja Turtle wristwatch, then turned it to show him the time. It was already past five.

"Don't worry about it," Brady said, his voice shorter than it had been since their first day of school together. Nikki blinked, wondering why he sounded like that. Brady went back to fiddling with her toes half-heartedly.

"You don't want to go home, do you?"

Nikki wasn't sure why she said it. Everyone in school knew better than to bring up Brady's home life, or the fact that he pretty much lived with Jared and Kim. Nikki waited for him to get angry, to yell at her or tell her to mind her own business. Or maybe do a classic Brady move and simply walk away. Instead the large wolf sighed heavily, dropping his head down.

"Not really," was all he muttered, but it was more than she had expected. So was his awkward clearing of his throat after a few moments of silence. "I blew it last night. They won't want me around, not after what I did."

She could have told him that she was sure he was wrong, but Nikki didn't know the whole story. It seemed like bullshit to try and pretend things were fine for him, when there was no way she could possibly know. So instead, Nikki slid down a little closer, her weight on her arms and her leg pressing against Brady's hand.

"Maybe not," Nikki said softly, honestly. Brady looked up at her, and she could see the worry in his eyes. "But you won't know staying out here with me."

Brady's jaw clenched and he turned his face away, but when his fingers tightened around calf, his expression had smoothed. "Sit with a pretty girl or get my ass chewed? I'll take this."

Nikki blushed at the compliment, feeling a little bit of déjà vu. Someone else had once told her she was pretty while she was with them on a beach too. Funny, how she had almost forgotten that…

She felt his eyes on her, and when she looked back up, Brady was watching her with a strange expression on his face. A shy smile curved his lips as he met her gaze, his eyes then dropping to her mouth. She knew what he wanted to do before he moved to do it. She remembered what Paul had said, about being careful not to let herself get dragged down by Brady, but it was hard when he was tugging on her calves, slowly pulling her off the rock and into him.

Her legs went around Brady's waist, and Nikki blushed when his arms wrapped beneath her bottom. It was far too easy to forget Paul's advice as Nikki tilted her head to the side, kissing him back when he closed the rest of the distance between them. Brady's lips were soft against her own. Nikki sighed, leaning into his form and sinking into the amazing feeling of him.

He paused, his eyes scraping over her features, as if to make sure that she was really there. Then Brady slid his hands through her hair, mouth once again on hers. This kiss was deeper, more heated, and Nikki was panting when they broke apart. To her surprise, she realized that Brady's arms were trembling. It couldn't be her weight, could it? Yeah, she'd gained a little over the summer, but Kim had said they could lift cars without any trouble.

"Brady, are you okay?" Nikki asked, tentatively touching her hand to his face. A shudder went through the young wolf, and he let her drop down to her feet. Brady hooked his arm around her waist and hauled her into him, her breasts crushed against his chest.

"I'm fine," Brady grunted, tilting her face up and lowering his own, murmuring. "Don't worry about it, it's nothing."

Nikki Connweller would learn that it was a lot easier to believe Brady Jennings when her mouth was pressed to his.

* * *

><p>Nikki had been right. Brady didn't want to go back to Kim and Jared's.<p>

He didn't want to do it so badly that he thought about sneaking into Collin's, or staying at his grandmother's, or maybe slipping down to Hoquiam to sleep beneath Jack's trailer. Tonight wouldn't be the first night the young wolf would have hidden from his failures through physical separation, curled up in Jack's abandoned den.

Hell, he almost went _home_. Brady hadn't done that in months.

If he'd been drinking, Brady wouldn't have gone back to their place, because when Brady was drinking, he didn't give a rat's ass about anything or anyone. It was easier that way, numbing himself into oblivion, but Brady had spent too much time with Nikki, and then when he had run his patrol, he had let too much slip about what he planned to do. The smell of Seth was all over the shack in the woods, where the Beta had taken what was left of Brady's moonshine and left him a two liter of Mountain Dew next to his guitar instead.

Brady had been furious, but Seth was the Beta, and there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it. Sober, the guilt from the previous night pushed Brady's feet in a direction he didn't want to go, and like so many times in the last few years, he found himself behind Jared and Kim's apartment. If Brady could have a dollar for every time he had stood out here, miserable, stress shredding his guts apart strand by strand, then he'd be the richest of all his Packmates. This hadn't happened in a while, but still…

There were just some things that an Allan wrench and a leaky faucet couldn't fix.

He couldn't go in. Brady knew that he should, knew that he'd hurt them if he didn't, and Brady cared about them…too much, he was convinced. It was his weakness, an awful, terrifying weakness, but he had it. They had too much power in his life, and he hated that. Sometimes he hated them, hated that they had the ability to hurt him, to take away the life that he wanted so badly to have with them. He hated that his happiness was at their whim. But at the same time, just the possibility that they would be angry with him, that they could hate _him_, left Brady shaken and sick to his stomach. So he stood on the back porch, next to a blood stain of Jared's that Brady himself had created, too afraid to go forward, too guilty to walk away.

Hating himself every single fucking moment of it.

Brady didn't know how long it had taken them to notice him, but they gave him too much time before Jared finally met him at the door. Jared looked exhausted, worry lines creasing his face, and he looked hurt. "I thought you'd come in," Jared rumbled unhappily. "I thought we were past this."

When Jared took a step forward, Brady flinched.

He tried to hide it, but Jared had seen, and at this point, the stink of Brady's shame was filling his own nostrils. Jared was a good man, he was a happy man, and while Brady was full of internal and external hatred, there were very few things that Jared could ever hate. But Jared _hated_ seeing Brady flinch away from him. Hurt crossed Jared's features, but he refused to back away. He had earned the right to stand within arm's length of Brady, and Brady forced himself to handle it now.

"We're past this, Brady," Jared said gruffly. "You know we're past this."

Brady swallowed, guilt twisting him in knots, unaware of the look of despair on his face. "Last night, Kim was here…and your tv…." Brady fell silent, unable to speak the rest.

"I don't _care_, Brady," the older wolf growled, fighting so hard to clamp down on his frustration. "I don't care what you did. When are you just going to _get that_, kid?"

Brady just hung his head. There was nothing he could say.

Jared sucked in a hard breath and then exhaled. "You have nightmares, Brady, and they get bad. I know that, I've always known that. They're just worse sometimes and we understand, okay? _I_ made the decision that you had a place here with us a long time ago, and when you have bad nights, Kim knows to stay away until they're over. Things are gonna get broke. But if that means you're going to end up standing out here, _smelling_ like this, because of some cheap ass furniture, then I'll strip the whole damn apartment to bare bones and we'll all live like that instead. I'm _not_ having you cowering in my backyard over a goddamn _tv_."

The younger wolf was breathing too fast, Brady knew it, but he knew Jared was upset and that just always fucked with him. Brady wondered if Jared had any clue that in that moment, Brady would do anything the older wolf wanted, would throw himself off a fucking cliff if Jared asked him. He had messed everything up and Brady just wanted to fix it and have Jared not be upset anymore.

"Everything's okay, Brady." The younger wolf nodded, eyes on the wood planking, but Jared must not have thought Brady believed it. "Brady. _Brady_. Everything's okay. I'm not pissed at you, kid. But we're past this, and you _know_ it. We don't have to keep going back to this shit again."

He did. He thought he did. Maybe he didn't, Brady didn't know. Just like it always had when he had been younger, Brady could feel himself shutting down. "M'sorry," Brady mumbled one last time, and after looking at him sadly, Jared nodded.

"That's pretty clear," he said, not unkindly. "Do you have homework? Make up work from last week?"

"I…I don't know." He didn't. Brady had no clue if he had any homework, tried to remember today and came up blank. Was he supposed to know? How angry was Jared going to get if he couldn't remember? He could just lie, make up some shit.

"Umm…we finished this history thing. And, uhh—" Brady started to pull something out of his ass, but Jared held up one hand, stopping him. The older wolf had always rather be told nothing than to be told lies. Jared opened the door, indicating that Brady should go inside before him. Brady did, but tried to stay close to the hallway wall, ducking his head and shoulders to give Jared more room.

"Dinner's in the fridge," Jared told him tiredly. "Get some food, and try to calm down. And _stay here_. All three of us need a full night's rest, and no one's getting that if you're gone."

With that, Jared disappeared back into his and Kim's bedroom, shutting the door behind him. Brady instantly moved back towards the backdoor, and Brady heard Jared pause. For a moment both wolves froze, and Brady could hear Jared's breathing change. The older, rougher Brady surged up, and it was tempting to walk out anyways. Just to prove that he could. The newer Brady knew that Kim liked the door locked when they were sleeping, so he just clicked the lock into place, turning around and walking back down the hall.

He pretended that he never heard Jared's exhale of relief.

Things were pretty much the same as how Brady had left them early that morning—when he had snuck out before Jared had woken up—although it was obvious that Jared had messed with the table before putting it back for Brady to deal with. Brady should have come home after school to work on it, instead of blowing his spare time with a girl, and it probably would have saved him a lot of stomach aching, but he was here now. He'd fix it. He'd fix everything, maybe the following day.

After stripping down into just a clean pair of sweats, Brady went into the kitchen. He bypassed dinner, choosing instead to dump half a box of baking soda into a large glass filled full of water. Too bad antacids didn't work so good on wolves, because his drink tasted like ass going down, but Brady kept chugging. A second glass, with the rest of the box, started to help.

Sims had taught him the trick. Kim never pried, she just always bought another box for when he needed it.

Since the television was broken, Brady sank down on his couch, staring at the ceiling. Brady unsnapped his cuff and left it on the broken where the coffee table had used to be, rubbing his thumb across the tattoo on his wrist. Closing his eyes always made things harder, brought back people and places he didn't want to have to remember, so he stared at the ceiling instead. Stared, and tried to forget. Tried to pretend he wasn't scared to death to go asleep, to go back there.

"Brady?" The walkie talkie, long forgotten on the broken countertop, crackled in static. He had told her he would be done patrolling by midnight, and she could call him whenever. That's what she'd wanted, right? For him to be physically available. But not emotionally. He wasn't ready for that. He didn't…he couldn't…not now, he just couldn't deal with any shit right now. Go away, Nikki. Go away, _everyone_. Just leave him the fuck alone.

"Brady? Are you there? Wow, I feel stupid. I just wanted to say goodnight…umm, over."

It wasn't a very long walk between the couch and the countertop. Brady didn't make it.


	4. Chapter Three

For Kwaiya. I wish I could do more, but at least I can give you Brady Jennings. Soaking wet. :)

_**Lost Chapters: Brady**_

_Chapter Three_

Sometimes the darkest times truly are in the dark, and it is only with the rising sun that illumination comes. As Brady lay stretched out on his couch, the low predawn light slipping through the plastic slats of the window blinds, it occurred to him that he had fucked up. He should have picked up the walkie talkie. He should have gotten up, should have sucked it up, and should have made himself function. But he didn't, and he hadn't, and now Brady Jennings woke up to just one more mess he had made in his life.

Which pretty much made it a normal day for him.

It was tempting to stay on the couch, to sink in deeper, to let the sagging cushions and worn blanket hide him from the world a little longer. Wolves were no strangers to hunkering down in hiding places, staying tucked safely away until the threat had passed. But as badly as Brady wanted to hide away, he wasn't a child anymore. He was a man now, and men didn't crouch at the bottom of closets or hide under blankets, hoping that the big bad world outside wouldn't find them again. Brady's wolf nature might not have been as aggressive or dominant as his Packmates, but he wasn't a coward.

Still…a few more moments on his couch wouldn't hurt.

As he lay there, Brady hooked his fingers under the leather cuff on his wrist, popping the double snap and pulling the thing free. His skin was lighter beneath the cuff, untouched by the previous summer sun, and slightly clammy from trapped perspiration sitting too long on his flesh. Beneath the paleness and the perspiration, a darkly inked pattern stretched across his veins. Brady had earned his aversion to tattoos the hard way, the hardest way, so maybe it was self-destructive of him to have his own. But this mark had a twin, sitting on a wrist far away from La Push, a wrist with just as much reason to avoid tattoos as well.

"You're a bitch, you know that?" Brady grunted to that twin wrist. "You're not the only one that wanted the hell away from here."

As always, there was no answer, not that Brady had expected one. Maybe some of the Pack could talk to each other in their heads, but he was just Brady. That would never be him. Instead the apartment stayed quiet, with only the noise of Kim's steady breathing to keep him company. Brady sniffed, his brain registering what his nose and ears had already known: that Jared was gone.

Jared was gone before five in the morning, which was different than normal behavior. _And_ he had somehow left without Brady waking at the noise.

Paranoia curled through Brady's mind, and the young wolf rose to his feet. Brady slipped silently over to the window, looking out at the rest of the tiny apartment complex. Jared and Kim's car was still there, and because it was so early, all of the neighbors were still inside their own homes. Reaching behind his head to scratch his shoulder, Brady headed down the hall, paused briefly at Kim's door to inhale a second time and listen closer. Making sure he wasn't wrong, and that she was still okay.

There had been a time where Brady had bragged to Collin about being trusted to guard the Alpha's imprint, but in reality, they were all just as important to each wolf. Rank ceased to matter the instant an imprint was in danger, and Brady knew that if Kim had been in that cave with him, he'd have fought just as hard to protect her too.

Fought just as hard and failed just as badly.

Shaking his head didn't rid Brady's mind of the disturbing images he now had, ones where Sims had been replaced by Kim. The tension that rarely left his shoulders settled in more firmly as Brady dressed and brushed his teeth quickly, pacing around the apartment like a caged animal. He couldn't leave, not when he didn't know why Jared had gone so unexpectedly, but his plan had been to get out of here before Jared woke this morning. It wasn't that he thought something was wrong, but Brady wasn't willing to leave Kim in case something _was_ wrong. Not any imprint, but especially not Kim.

Feeling that tension twist into something tighter, a special blend of anger and worry that was uniquely him, Brady stopped moving and started listening. For ten minutes he stood outside Kim's bedroom door as she slept: silent, watchful, with nose and ears completely open. Not again. He and Collin had made the vow to themselves that they would never be caught unawares again. Not anywhere, not anytime. That had been the first thing that Collin had taught Owen, the first thing that Brady would ever teach another wolf if Jake ever gave him one. And if that made Brady and Collin the most paranoid wolves in the Pack, no one said shit about it. They had earned their paranoia, through blood and fear and fang.

For ten minutes Brady stood there, worried, waiting, ready. But then the tension slid from his shoulders, because he didn't have to worry anymore. Brady could smell something else outside now, a scent his nose had been searching for. Jared. Jared, and apparently breakfast sandwiches, which meant that Jared must have run to the all night drive through in Forks, to pick them up. Again, it was abnormal for Jared's weekday behavior, and as the other wolf unlocked the back door, Brady grabbed his book bag and his sweatshirt full of splinters, and he bailed out the front.

Jared's softly breathed "Dammit kid" was well deserved. Brady knew, okay? Fuck, he was _trying_ to fix what he'd done the other night, wasn't he?

Only Brady was at a loss as to how to fix this part, the wooden bits clutched to his chest in white knuckled hands. Something Jared had loved. Something Brady had shattered. And not knowing what else to do, Brady was going to the only person he knew that would not only be up this early, but who had the best chance of fixing what Brady had managed to fuck up: Sam Uley.

There was a longstanding opinion in the Pack that Sam was unhealthily repressed. It was Brady Jennings' private opinion that _all_ of the Pack was repressed—one couldn't spend that much of their life lying about who and what they were without having to stuff parts of themselves down—but that out of all of them, the first three wolves suffered from the affliction the most. In a way it had been much easier for Brady. There had been eight other wolves before Brady and Collin had phased, and as young as the Pack had been, there had already been an established order to the Pack. Brady and Collin were told what had happened to them, what they could expect to continue happening to them, and how best to deal with it.

But the first three wolves, especially Sam Uley, had to find out those things for themselves.

It showed in small but very specific ways. Having lost so much control of their earlier lives, the first wolves had in varying degrees become addicted to stability and structure, to rules and routine. None of them liked surprises, although of the three, Paul was learning how to handle them the best. Imprinting on and marrying Cassie had been good for Paul, because she was the most spontaneous person that Brady had ever met. But Jared's home and life were so regimented that at any point during a _usual_ day, Brady could predict with surety exactly where and what the older wolf was doing.

Even more than Jared, Sam lived and breathed routine. He didn't just plan each day in advance; he planned each day weeks in advance. Collin had once decided that Sam's nerves were strung tightly enough to make him a walking bongo drum…a drum that Jake had been beating on since their current Alpha had first phased. Not being an Alpha anymore had helped Sam, but some patterns of behavior stayed, no matter what the current situation.

Brady had been Jake's wolf for longer than he had been Sam's wolf, but one didn't easily forget an Alpha. No matter how far in ranking Sam had slipped before Jake had told him he could stop phasing, no matter how many older wolves they found outside of La Push, they would all remember the first wolf in their Pack. The first voice that had been in their heads, explaining what had happened to them. Their first—if not their only—Alpha.

One didn't destroy something Sam had made and drop it in front of him lightly.

Brady had learned quickly in life that the best ways to avoid problems were to stay out late and get up early. Missing sleep didn't suck nearly as much as some other things could, and it was instinct to rise and shine and beat feet out of wherever he was staying before shit went down. That meant that he was often up when everyone else was still asleep. Jared being awake had messed with him, and as Brady slipped quickly through the woods over to Sam and Emily's place, his nose told him that both Emily and Sam were awake and gone too.

It bothered him, because he didn't know _why_. Brady always was happier knowing what was coming and why people were doing what they were doing. But without knowing where Sam might be, Brady had no choice but to sit on Sam's front porch and wait. Thankfully, Brady didn't have to wait long.

Emily must have taken their truck, because after a few minutes, Sam's scent filled Brady's nose, followed by the sounds of footsteps. The previous Alpha was walking back from wherever he had been, his hands loosely stuffed into his pockets and his pace relaxed. For a man who had always walked with the determined stride of someone with too many places to be, it was strange to see. Plus it dragged out the whole mess, which Brady hated. Brady, sitting here, waiting, and feeling like a complete asshole. Sam, looking calm and sure of himself, and probably never having known what being an asshole felt like.

It was like waiting in the principal's office voluntarily, knowing that you were going to get that _look_. The look of disappointment. The look that would say that Brady should have known better, that Sam had made _sure_ Brady knew better. As Sam came closer, the heavy leather soles of his work boots crunching into the gravel part of the drive, Brady found himself wishing he could be anywhere else. Seriously, anywhere else. Anywhere at all.

The older wolf nodded in greeting, and Brady managed to get out a grunt as Sam closed the distance between them.

"You're up early," Sam said, to which Brady found himself sinking a little lower, shoulders hunching defensively.

"Broke something," Brady mumbled, not meeting Sam's eyes.

Sam took one look at the remains of the chair that Brady had set on the porch step, and the previous Alpha frowned. Sam's frown deepened when he saw the smaller pieces of the chair gathered on Brady's sweatshirt, and that was all it took to have Brady's eyes down and his head tilted to expose his throat. It occurred to Brady in that moment that even if it hadn't been stated, Pack was Pack, whether that wolf still phased or not. Sam could end up old and grey and Brady would still be dropping his eyes and giving the older man his neck.

"Em's got a breakfast casserole in the fridge," Sam grunted at Brady, ignoring the younger wolf's body posture as he gathered up Brady's sweatshirt and the wood shards within. "Get it in the oven and meet me out back."

Not only would he always be dropping his eyes and giving Sam his neck, apparently Brady would always end up doing whatever Sam told him to.

Feeling like a pathetic little bitch, the young wolf slunk into the kitchen. Brady had no idea what temperature to preheat the oven to, and he really didn't like the idea of going out to Sam's work shed to ask a question that was probably stupid. He liked the idea of screwing up Sam's breakfast even less. So Brady worried about it—and silently cursed himself for worrying about it—all the way from the porch to the top shelf of the refrigerator. His relief was palpable when he saw that Emily had left a sticky note on the casserole, saying what temperature to cook it for and how long, and to leave the tin foil covering on.

Pleased that he was able to do _something_ right, Brady set the stove timer and relished every minute of waiting for the oven to preheat. Every minute in the house was one he didn't have to face what he'd done to the chair. Unfortunately the oven was new, and there was only so long before Brady had no more excuses to linger.

Brady's feet scuffed the dirt as he shuffled back outside, following the worn dirt path to Sam's work shed. He paused at the open door, uncertain if he should just walk inside.

"Door's open, Brady."

Well yeah, no shit, Sam. That didn't mean that Brady was supposed to go _in_ there, though.

Through the doorway, Brady could see that Sam had taken the sweatshirt bundle and laid it out on one of his worktables, arranging the pieces in the general shape of what the chair had used to be. The largest piece was one of the chair legs that had managed to not be shattered like the others. Even the seat had been broken down into multiple pieces. Brady had gathered every piece that he'd been able to find, but some were no more than slivers.

"Even if I could glue all of these back together, this would never be safe to sit in." Sam shook his head, absently scratching at the stubble growing across his jaw before picking up a piece of the backrest. It had been the most ornately carved part of the chair. "Even Cassie would break it with her weight. It's not worth fixing."

Some things you couldn't fix. Sometimes you didn't have time to fix them, sometimes things broke beyond repair. Some things were never meant to stay in one piece and were destined to be destroyed eventually. Brady knew that all too well. But Jared had loved this table set, and Brady had ruined that. There had to be a way to fix it.

"Couldn't we just…shit, I don't know. Reinforce it or something?" Brady asked desperately, moving over to Sam's shoulder. "Like better glue or metal plates? I could get something from the scrapyard. Or maybe I could be real careful to put it back together exactly as it was. There's got to be _something_."

Sam's eyes found Brady's and instead of anger, Brady saw the beginnings of sympathy there. The former Alpha turned on his stool and tapped Brady's folded arms with the piece of seat pointedly. "Wolf. Wood. You're always going to win, Brady. It's always going to lose."

"Do you have any more?" Brady pressed, casting about the work shed. There were blanket covered furniture in the back, but mostly cabinets and storage chests. No tables or chairs besides a single half-finished rocking chair. "I'll pay you, Sam. I'll pay you full price."

Even as he said it, Brady knew that he had no way of paying Sam that kind of cash. The furniture Sam made was expensive, and even a single chair as nice as the one Brady had destroyed cost a couple hundred dollars.

"I don't have any more, Brady," Sam said quietly. "I only made the four."

Brady slumped, feeling the last bits of hope leave him. He turned around abruptly and walked away. It may have been rude, but his hands were shaking. Jake was more lenient about that than Sam had been…depending on the wolf, they could take a moment to try to get ahold of themselves. Sam was hard as stone. If there was a chance they could phase, then they had to get into the woods immediately. Besides, if wolf trumped wood, and Sam trumped wolf, Brady sure as hell better make sure that he didn't phase in the middle of Sam's workshop.

Even destroying Jared's apartment wasn't as bad as destroying Sam's livelihood.

Sam knew exactly why Brady walked away, and never stopped him as Brady went into the cover of the woods behind Sam's house. The fastest way to get control of himself was in wolf form, so Brady phased. Before bone and sinew had finished breaking and tearing, healing and reforming, Brady had already slid into the Packmind.

Seth, Embry, and Jake were still running patrol, although Paul and Jared were supposed to take over for Jake and Embry in a little under an hour. All three of the wolves weren't in the best moods, and having an upset Brady in the mix wasn't exactly what any of them wanted, but the top two wolves were ready to focus on something other than each other. Lately, Jake and Seth hadn't been as good at hiding their thoughts as they usually were, and Embry thought that spending another patrol with Seth and Jake either fighting or refusing to speak with each other had been just what his already frazzled nerves had needed. Embry was _worried_. He was hurt and angry, but dammit he was so—

Embry's thoughts faded into background murmuring, the way they often did when the leaders of the Pack decided to block him away. Jake wasn't looking forward to their Pack meeting that week, no matter how happy they made Renesmee and Cassie, and even though it wasn't until Friday. Seth was unhappy because he was pretty sure Chancy had a date with someone tonight, and that bothered him more than he wanted it to bother him. Embry was tired, but whatever else the wolf felt and thought was firmly buried beneath the buffer that having Jake there provided. Similarly how Brady knew that he was being blocked from Embry by the same. That was probably a good thing, because Brady didn't want anyone in his head. Fuck. _Fuck_. Sam couldn't fix the chair. What the hell was he supposed to _do_?

Seth thought that maybe Brady was getting too worked up about this. He had to know that when it came to Jared, Brady couldn't do—

Interrupting the Beta mid-thought, Jared phased in early. Whatever Jared was thinking, Brady didn't know, because he panicked, phasing out immediately. He knew that would piss Jared off, but it was just Brady's instinct to duck and cover when it came to the older wolf.

Naked and alone in the middle of the woods, Brady snarled in frustration. It was so much harder bringing himself down into a controlled state like this, and he couldn't even run it off because he knew that would take him too close to the patrol routes. Too close to a probably even more pissed off Jared. Unfortunately Brady wasn't Collin, and he couldn't grab the nearest set of tits to simply screw his issues out. The best Brady could do was stand there, fists clenched as he took long breaths. In. Out. In. Out. Calm. _Calm_.

One of these days he was going to have to learn how to do yoga or some shit.

Sam was still sitting on his stool when Brady finally returned, still scratching at the short beard he was growing and doing nothing as he waited for Brady to come back. That was all Sam Uley was doing. Sitting. Scratching. Waiting. Sam, the wolf that had always worked as hard as he could every single moment he wasn't out on patrol. Sam, the wolf that took every shift he had to…not because he enjoyed it, but because if there was slack, then someone had to take it up. Sam, the wolf that still drove Emily to physical therapy and ran extra patrols with Quil to protect Claire, who was perpetually tired and had only smiled a handful of times that Brady had ever seen. _Sam_ was doing _nothing_.

It was only now that Brady noticed the fact that there were no dark circles under Sam's eyes, and no stress lines creasing a tensed face. He looked so normal in that moment, his life so bland and boring that he could actually be rested and relaxed, and it caused a flush of resentment in Brady. Someone else who got to bail, if in a different way. Wordlessly he stepped into the shed and started gathering up the remnants of the chair he had broken. Sam had been no help, but Brady would think of something. Him and Collin, they'd figure out how to fix this.

"Why'd you break it?" Sam asked as Brady carefully arranged the splinters into his sweatshirt, not wanting to lose even a single one.

When Brady didn't answer, those same authoritative eyes locked onto him the way they always had, and the younger wolf stiffened, ducking his head. Why did he break it? Cause he was a fuck up, and if he could find a way to ruin shit, he always did.

"Brady?"

"Nightmare," Brady mumbled, unaware until it was too late that the scent of embarrassment and shame had thickened the air around them. Quickly, Brady tried to finish gathering the rest of his mistake into his sweatshirt and get the hell out of there. "If I work for you, whatever you need me to do, could you show me how to make a replacement chair?"

Instead of answering, Sam rose to his feet. "Come on, let's go for a walk."

Brady didn't want to walk with Sam, but again, Sam had been Brady's Alpha. The desire to please the older man was engrained in him almost as deeply as it was with Jake. Brady wasn't a particularly skilled wolf, but he was a loyal one, and he'd follow his Alpha through hell and back. If his former Alpha wanted Brady to walk with him, then Brady would just shut his mouth and do as he was asked. Leaving the sweatshirt on the bench, Brady followed Sam out behind his house, close to where Brady had gone to phase.

There was a small stream only a few minutes' walk away, even ambling along at this new version of Sam Uley's pace. Frustrated because he had more than the chair to deal with this morning, Brady could feel impatience wearing at his temper. The problem was that he couldn't _do_ a damn thing about it. Sam wanted to walk, so they would walk, until he was done walking. And when Sam decided that they should sit by the water, they would do that too.

Sometimes being so submissive was bullshit. But try as he might, Brady didn't have it in him to do more than glower at the water in silent resentment. Maybe she was a bitch for leaving, but at least she had the balls to do it. Brady was stuck here no matter what he wanted.

"You're pretty upset about the chair," Sam said after a few minutes of silence, squatting down to his haunches at the stream's edge. Brady had sat slightly higher on the bank, and when Sam squatted, Sam's head was now lower than Brady's own. He poked the stick in his hand at a small piece of sandstone beneath the water, turning it over. "Was Jared angry?"

"Probably."

Wise eyes flickered at that, and then Sam gave Brady another knowing look. "But you don't know for sure."

Brady's gaze dropped back to his feet, gritting his teeth and telling himself to just endure this. Give Sam his walk and his talk, and then Brady could leave and figure out how to fix the mess he'd made of things.

"Brady, I'm not phasing anymore," Sam told him quietly, watching the water swirl about the end of the stick as he absently nudged the rocks again. "And while I appreciate the respect you're trying to show me, you don't _have_ to be here."

"If I didn't have to, I _wouldn't_ be here," Brady muttered resentfully. Sam looked over at him, and Brady gritted his teeth. "I know it sucked having to figure shit out all by yourself, but it's bullshit to never get any choice in what happens. By the time _you_ had to listen to someone else, you didn't _want_ to be in charge anymore."

Sam didn't reply, and Brady felt his resentment grow. Sam, the only one of them besides Jake that had a choice in any of this. Sam, who didn't have to be a wolf anymore. Sam, who could pretend to be normal and have it be true.

Well, truer than the rest of them, anyways.

"You're right, Brady."

Somehow hearing that didn't make Brady feel any better, it just made him feel worse, and Brady turned his face away. He didn't like being right, not when it was his previous Alpha giving way to him. It felt wrong, it felt like Sam was becoming less. Brady still had to listen to him, but Sam was just…less. And if Sam was less, that made Brady less too. It made him angrier, more resentful, but there just wasn't anything he could _do_ about it.

His hands started shaking again, but out here there was no one else but Sam. Sam, who was still enough like them to live through a pissed off wolf phasing right next to him. Probably. Knowing Brady, he was wrong. Knowing Brady, he'd phased right there and end up killing Sam, something that Jared loved even more than that stupid fucking chair. And then Brady would have to drag Sam's pieces around in a sweatshirt too, looking for someone to glue him back together.

Laughing bitterly at that image, Brady tried to breathe again. In. Out. Calm. Whatever. It was all such bullshit.

As if Sam could tell what Brady was thinking, the older wolf stood. Now that his head was higher than Brady's, the change in placement righted some of the wrong Brady had been feeling, helping his hands to stop trembling. The silence had grown awkward. Brady had just imagined killing his previous Alpha—which was terrible on a level that he wasn't able to deal with—so the young wolf cleared his throat.

"Do you miss it?" Brady asked, folding his arms across his knees. "Phasing? Is it hard to stop?"

Sam was silent for a moment, and then he barked out a small gruff laugh. "It's like telling your foot to stop being a foot, and to be a hand instead. It makes no sense, and it's annoying and frustrating. Every step you take seems wrong, like you're only doing it with half of yourself."

"Sounds like it sucks."

"Yeah. Yeah, but it gets a little easier each day," Sam continued, scratching at his beard again. "You start to remember how you used to be, back when you only had one foot to stand on."

Brady frowned in confusion. "But if you have three hands, can't you do more shit too?"

For some reason that brought a small smile to Sam's face. "As long as you don't have anywhere else you want to go, then sure, Brady. I guess so."

The younger wolf had the feeling that Sam was talking over his head, and it bugged him. Grunting and feeling stupid, Brady ducked his head, glaring at nothing. Sam was good at sitting in silence, and Brady had never spent much time alone with Sam, not enough to know what they should talk about.

"Brady, why do you think Jared liked that table set?" Sam asked suddenly, and Brady grimaced.

"Because you made it for him."

That answer was easy. Jared adored Sam, and part of Jared would always consider himself Sam's wolf. The table had been gift from an Alpha, from a dearly cared for Packmate, brother, and friend. That was why it was so terrible, what Brady did.

Funny, how Sam's expression said that maybe Brady wasn't as right as he thought.

"He talks about you," Sam told Brady. "Jared and Paul come over here a couple times a week, and when they talk, it's almost always about Kim and you, and Cassie and Collin. Jared was here yesterday, after you slipped out before he and Kim woke up. He was here half the morning, talking with me about that night, and he was pretty upset. But you need to know something, Brady. In all that time he was here, he never said one word about that chair."

Brady let out a harsh bitter laugh. "Yeah, probably cause I busted up his television too. I don't suppose you know how to put those together, do you?"

The older wolf didn't answer, and Brady fell silent. The silence stretched between them for so long that Brady considered getting up and walking away.

"Jared doesn't care about the chair, whether I made it for him or not," Sam abruptly declared, his voice firm with authority. An Alpha was always an Alpha, even when they had a beard and no dark circles under their eyes. Even when they forgot to—or maybe just tried not to—stand above a wolf more submissive than them. "Jared doesn't care about the chair, and if you don't know that about him by now, then you're not paying attention. If you want to help me out, I'll show you how to make another chair for him, but you need to understand something, pup. You're doing it for _you_, not for him."

"Why the hell would I make myself a chair?" Brady growled, inexplicably infuriated with Sam. _He_ didn't pay attention to Jared? Brady listened to every fucking word that came out of Jared's mouth. Brady had spent years watching and memorizing Jared's actions and reactions to situations. "Whatever, I'll figure it out myself."

Sam just shook his head, giving Brady a knowing look as Brady stood. "What?" Brady demanded, frustration growing.

"For every hour you spend hiding from him over this, Jared's spending two hours worrying about you hiding from him over it." The older man reached over and squeezed Brady's shoulder. As it always did, being touched unexpectedly made him stiffen. "Go talk to him, Brady. You're making this whole thing worse than it is."

Brady was pretty sure he wasn't, but when a former Alpha gave you a look like that, there wasn't a whole lot someone like him could say.

Sam had said to go home, but the comment had been in that grey zone where orders and suggestions grew blurry. Knowing that Sam wanted him to go talk to Jared made Brady feel like he should. But enough of Brady's own self really didn't want to go talk to Jared. So Brady settled the issue by stealing a chunk of Emily's half-warmed egg casserole before getting his sweatshirt and chair parts from Sam's workshop, telling himself that he would go talk to Jared. Eventually. Just not right now. Tonight, when he went back to Jared and Kim's to sleep, then he'd talk to Jared.

Brady waited until the scent of patrolling wolf passed by, and then slipped out to the old shed in the woods where he kept his guitar, leaving the chair to be dealt with later. Then he pulled out the walkie talkie that he had stuck in his back pocket before leaving Jared's. After all, it was almost six, about the time that most people started waking up, and Brady had more than just a chair to fix.

* * *

><p>Nikki Connweller <em>had<em> been asleep. She had been…up until someone had decided to call her on her walkie talkie. Assuming that if he was okay with not picking up so that he could sleep, that Brady wouldn't be pissed if she did the same, Nikki had turned down the dial and gone back to bed.

It had been nice. Instead of nightmares about amber eyes on a beach, Nikki had dreamed about her and her friends going to a cinnamon bun restaurant in the Land of Ooo, where handsome men in puppy dog costumes weaved in and out of the tables and wrote down orders on peppermint patties, inquiring if she wanted a side order of licorice stick. She had said yes, and they had brought the massive chunk of candy to her, but she couldn't quite fit it in her mouth. Skylar was laughing at her, and Dawn was trying to explain to her exactly what she was doing wrong, but Nikki couldn't hear because of the two people at patio table on the other side of her window.

"…So, she called you. And you—like the dumbass you keep insisting on being—didn't pick up. So you called her this morning, and she didn't pick up."

"Nope."

"And that's why we're here. Stalking Kim's sister at six-thirty in the morning."

"…."

Nikki didn't care who was stalking what, because she had almost figured out that the licorice stick was evil, and if she really wanted to feel better, she should probably accept one of the cinnamon buns from Cinnamon Bun. After all, they were at Cinnamon Bun's Cinnamon Buns, the most popular restaurant in Ooo, and it had taken Finn weeks of vanquishing things to get them this reservation.

"…why we're here, _retardedly_ early, stalking Kim's sister with an ugly ass little plushy that looks like some little kid threw up on it."

"Chicks like stuffed shit."

Cinnamon Bun was about to disagree, but his voice was covered by someone else's voice, and the delicious cinnamon bun in her mouth was making little pathetic whining noises. Sadly, the deliciousness was less delicious, tasting more like her pillow instead, because someone on the outside of Nikki's window was _still_ talking.

"…owe me five bucks now. Have you ever consider that not being a dick might make your life a little easier, Brade? Cause then you wouldn't _have_ to be out here retardedly early, stalking Kim's sister with an ugly ass plushy that looks like some kid threw up on it. And I wouldn't have to be out here retardedly early, watching you stalk Kim's sister with an ugly ass plushy that looks like some kid threw up on it, for moral support."

"…Whatever."

"And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why Brady Jennings is an absolute fucktard."

"Who are you even talking to?"

"I'm being metaphorical, asshole."

"Dude, you have to say 'like' or 'as' or some shit if you're gonna be metaphorical."

At this point, Nikki was required to place her pillow over her mouth to stifle her scream. Then she rolled over and picked up the phone, dialing a number by heart. A sleepy hello answered, to which Nikki groaned. "Kim? There are two boys in my back yard that might not survive another five minutes. I was having the dream and they ruined it."

Kim must have just woken up, because she yawned loudly into the phone. "The dream or _the dream_?"

"The dream. Cinnamon Bun's Cinnamon Buns. I _finally_ had a table this time. If they had ruined _the dream_, they'd both be dead right now."

Nikki's sister made a little noise, and she realized that Kim was eating. "Jared went for breakfast this morning. I have a few extra McGriddles over here if you want one. They're not cinnamon buns, but they're pretty good."

"…Dude, what do you think _the dream_ is? Do you think it's about me?"

"Why the hell would she dream about you?"

"I don't know, chicks just do. I never questioned a good thing, so why start now? If it helps, I'll try not to be too awesome in her dreams, so that you don't look bad. Or worse, really. You are the one stalking her, after all…"

This time Nikki didn't even bother to hide her screech into her pillow. "Brady, please don't take this the wrong way, but you need to either _go away_ and take Collin with you, or stay and kill Collin. Otherwise I'm going to have to destroy you both."

Over the phone, Kim had seemed to perk up a little. "Oh, is Brady over there? We weren't sure where he was. Isn't it a little early, though?"

Patience. Nikki could have patience. Really, she could. "Yes, Kim. It _is_ a little early."

"…Do you think she can really destroy us?" the voice was asking the other voice, sounding dubious. "She's pretty small."

"I could just kill you, and apologize for not answering her call last night that way. Two birds, two stones."

"Bros before hoes goes right out the window with you, huh? Gotta admit, I'm kind of hurt, Brade..."

Nikki threw her pillow at the window, but other than thudding softly, no real damage was done. And now she didn't have a pillow. Kim was still talking, oblivious to the fact that Nikki was about to commit a premeditated double homicide. "Did they say why they were over?"

"Apparently Brady wanted to apologize to me for not answering the walkie talkie last night, and he thought letting Collin wake me up was the answer."

"Collin's up this early?"

"Yes, and _right outside my window_. Ruining the dream."

Kim snickered, making more munching noises. "At least it wasn't _the dream_, because that could have been embarrassing. Remember the last time you had _the dream_, on the couch after Easter dinner, and Jared couldn't look at you all day? I think he picked three fights with Paul that week, and Paul never did know why."

Blushing at the memory, Nikki groaned. "Don't remind me."

Oh, Nikki remembered. She also knew why Jared never let her stand close to Paul anymore when they were all together, not that it was fair. It wasn't like Nikki deliberately tried to dream _the dream_. It just…happened. Sometimes. Frequently. Her silence must have given her away, because Kim started laughing but kindly changed the subject. "So, are you sure you don't want a McGriddle? I can bring one over before going to meet Emily."

"Naw. I just want some coffee."

"Hmm, coffee. Speaking of which—hey Jared? Can you reach that for me? We're out of the regular filters." A masculine voice murmured something on the other end, and Kim replied. "He's over there with Collin…I think so, his lunch money isn't on the table anymore. Sorry, Nik, I'm back. So, are you mad about it? The walkie talkie?"

"Not really," Nikki replied, yawing herself and sitting up in bed, hearing running water over the phone. "I figured he had a good reason for not answering, like sleeping, and I wasn't upset."

Something in the background made a beeping noise, and Nikki recognized it as Kim turning on their coffee pot. "Well, you could either throw them both off the lawn, like I did Paul and Jared a few times. They used to wake me up before school to try and convince me to cook pancakes for them. I finally started keeping a water gun in my room. That might still be there if you need it, check the closet. Or…"

"Or?"

"Or you could tell him thank you for the effort, but to keep whatever he got in case something actually happens. That way he'll save himself a trip to the store. Jared's got a whole box of last minute, opps I screwed up, things. It's running a little low, though. The last time he blew it, I ended up getting a memo pad from our bank."

"Jared took that from Dad's desk drawer."

"Yeah, I figured. Heh, Jared's glaring at me. I don't think I'm supposed to know about his secret stash. So, is it still loud out there?"

"Nope. But…aww. There's a little stuffed Marceline sitting outside on my windowsill. I think it's a keychain. It looks like one of those keychains that Mrs. Clearwater got in last week, but I didn't realize she had any Adventure Time ones. I would have raided the box. Did you tell him?"

"You have at least ten Adventure Time patches on your book bag, Nik, and half of them are that vampire chick. Just because Brady doesn't talk a lot doesn't mean he doesn't pay attention. He actually pays more attention than almost anyone I've ever known."

Kim was getting that tone to her voice that she and Jared sometimes had when they talked about Brady. Pride and contentment, mixed with concern. That Kim loved Brady was obvious. That Jared loved Brady was so freaking transparent that _everyone_ on the reservation knew it.

Well, almost everyone.

Nikki was awake now, and she stayed on the phone with Kim for as long as she could get away with. Finally she had to hang up and get ready for school, making sure to pack her notes for the quiz they were having first period. Her parents' room was on the far side of the house—which was why Collin and Brady hadn't woken them by talking—so Nikki stuck her head in to wave goodbye to them both before heading to school.

Her father must have been up late writing, because he was still fast asleep, but her mother was getting ready for work. Nikki and Kim had gotten their looks from Piper Connweller: the wispy dark hair, the long eyelashes, and the short stature. But where Nikki got her laid-back quietness from her father, Kim's more outgoing and excitable nature was one-hundred percent their mother. True, Piper had never thrown a shoe at her husband, but it was easier being married to a writer than a shape shifting wolf with a secret identity. Jed Connweller adored his wife to distraction, and Piper Connweller bent over backwards to try and keep him happy.

Nikki was pretty sure that her parents were two of the most happily married people she had ever known.

Piper smiled and mouthed for Nikki to have a nice day, pantomiming her questions about lunch money and homework. Yes, Nikki had everything. No, she wasn't going to be late. _Yes_…and seriously, she was a sophomore in high school. Of _course_ Nikki had brushed her teeth.

Nikki normally walked with her friends to school, but Skylar had spent last night with Dawn, and Dawn's house was the opposite direction from the school. This morning she made the walk alone. Brady was sitting on the low cement wall out front of the school, but unlike her, Brady wasn't alone. The wolves rarely were, now that she paid attention to those things.

Collin, as always, was a few feet away from Brady, hands on Callie Jennings' waist and tongue down Callie's throat. The two were making out like they were oblivious to every single student that passed by watching them, although by Callie's body language, it was clear that she was only doing so to pass the time. Collin seemed far more enthusiastic about the whole thing. Brady just looked annoyed to be anywhere near them when they were doing that, but he was still there. Owen was sitting on the concrete near their feet, a math text in his hands that he wasn't actually reading and an embarrassed flush on his face.

Nikki wasn't sure why the two wouldn't have just left, the way Dawn and Skylar would have bailed in a similar situation. It must have been a Pack thing.

As she neared them, Nikki saw Brady seem to perk up, and he turned, as if somehow knowing she was there. Maybe he smelled her, which was kind of strange to think about, but Nikki was relatively sure she didn't smell like much besides her shampoo and soap and maybe the Poptarts she'd had for breakfast.

Callie broke away from Collin, the beautiful she-wolf locking in on Nikki.

"Hey Connweller, want my sloppy seconds?" she asked playfully, her voice carried to other students nearby. For Callie, it was an attempt to be nice…ish. Callie seemed in a good mood that day, if her willingness to tease without a nasty tone to her voice was any indicator. But rumors about Nikki and Collin were already being spread around the school, and Nikki flushed. Instead of answering Callie, she pulled a small clear bottle of hand sanitizer out of her book bag and tossed it to Collin.

"Here, Collin. Just dump it straight in your mouth, and it'll help kill the taste of crack whore."

Nikki wasn't sure what made her say it, but she had a tendency of saying things that got her into trouble a lot. The she-wolf's eyes flashed in sudden anger, but Collin barked out a laugh, and had a tight grip on Callie's waist, preventing her from closing the distance between them. Brady smirked at Callie as he stood up and slung his backpack over his shoulder. Nikki offered Owen a smile, but he was staring resolutely at his math book, and Brady had already fallen into step with her, blocking Owen from her view.

It felt strange but oddly exhilarating, walking into school with him. Just the two of them. If Brady noticed the curious looks they were getting, he ignored them. Instead he stayed at her side as she headed down the main hallway, touching her arm lightly to indicate that he needed to stop at his locker. Nikki waited, watching the tall wolf go through the motions of opening the lock and shoving his book bag inside.

He still hadn't said a word to her, and Nikki wasn't sure what she should say. However Brady finally shut his locker door and leaned his elbow on the metal, shifting so that he was only a couple inches away from her. The air felt warmer, and Nikki inhaled, the scent of him just as good as it had been the last time she had been next to him. Nikki realized that she was staring at his chest instead of looking up at his face, her own heating in response to her nervousness. Would there ever be a time when he didn't make her feel like this: like her stomach and her heart were fighting for a place in her throat?

"Thanks for not being pissed about last night," he rumbled, moving closer.

"It really was fine, I knew it was late," Nikki told him shyly, glancing up at him. "Thank you for the keychain. You didn't have to, but I like her."

Brady reached over and tugged at the little stuffed Marceline she had clipped to her book bag, and his lips began to curve a little. "What is this thing anyways?"

"Marceline the Vampire Queen," she informed Brady. "Adventure Time? She flies around and plays guitar? Her dad is completely evil and ate her fries?" When he arched an eyebrow, Nikki stood up a little straighter. "Hey, she's beyond awesome, you just don't even know."

Apparently there was something attractive about her defending her choice in cartoon characters, because Brady closed the distance that remained between them. Despite the fact that everyone could see them, Brady slid his fingers through her hair and tipped her face up, bending down and kissing her. Unlike Collin and Callie, Brady just brushed his mouth against hers lightly, but it startled her. Nikki didn't even have a chance to kiss him back before Brady had withdrawn.

"You need to go to your locker?" Brady asked, and Nikki nodded, licking her lips. He caught her doing it, and when she blushed, Brady's roughly handsome features softened into amusement.

"You do that a lot," he told her. "You're a walking tomato."

"Nope," she disagreed, even though Nikki knew it was true. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

Brady smirked as they headed down the senior hall towards the sophomore lockers. He was so close to her side, Nikki could feel the heat radiating off of his skin. She wanted to reach for his hand, and she was pretty sure that a guy who would kiss her in the hallways would hold her hand. But this was Brady Jennings, and he was really hard to read.

"What are you worried about?"

Nikki glanced up at Brady in surprise. He had a frown on his face, and he was looking around them as if trying to search out the source of her distress. The sophomore hesitated and then murmured, "I just wasn't sure if you wanted to hold hands or not."

"That's stupid," he snorted. Nikki drew herself up, eyes flashing at the insult, but her surge of prideful indignation fell when Brady chuckled. "Girls worry about the weirdest shit."

Brady didn't hold her hand, but he did something even better: he draped his arm over her shoulders, muscled arm heavy and warm as he drew her closer to his side. Nikki's hip bumped his, and she bit the side of her lip, a grin slipping free. And when they reached her locker, his arm slid down to her waist. This time when Brady drew her closer, Nikki lifted her face up, knowing that he was going to kiss her.

Unfortunately someone else interrupted them with an ear piercing cat call. "Woohoo! Go Brady!"

It was Collin, of course, with the ever present Owen at his heels. Thankfully they were Callie-free. Nikki turned beet red and stuffed as much of her face into her locker as she could get away with, in the pretense of looking for her first class text book.

"Dude, you're a dick," Brady muttered, as the other male wolves joined them.

Diana and Vanessa—the two freshmen—walked past, eyeing Owen. "Hi Owen," Diana said, giving him a smile, and Owen's cheeks went pink.

"H-hello," Owen stuttered shyly, making both girls giggle as they scurried off.

Collin beamed at Owen, gave the two girls' backsides a once over and them flashed Owen a thumbs-up. "Good for you, Owen my man."

Nikki was pretty sure that if Owen could have climbed into his own locker to hide from everyone's interested stares, he would have.

"We can help you get in there if you want," Brady said, smirking and sounding kind of like an ass. Collin laughed and threw an arm over Owen's shoulders.

"Yeah, and then Owen can kick both our asses later. Nikki, you have no idea how good this guy is when you ladies aren't around. He's like Superman, the wolf version."

Owen went a few interesting shades of red and purple at that, but he seemed pleased at the compliment. Brady just snorted and looked away.

"So, are you two actually together now?" Collin asked, grinning widely as he shifted from embarrassing Owen to embarrassing Nikki and Brady. "Cause I'm ready to start in on my best friend's prerogative. Speaking of which, littlest Connweller, where are your two partners in crime?"

"What the hell does that mean?"

"It means that Littlesea thinks he's going to go seashell deep in one of us," Dawn said, approaching from the side, dragging a yawning and rumpled Skylar by the arm. "Which he's not. Move, people, you're in my way."

"You're late," Nikki said, closing her locker and hoping the heat on her cheeks was fading. If Dawn noticed, she was more preoccupied with the bell that was about to ring.

"Blame this one. She came over last night and it was hell trying to get her going this morning. I would have left her but we have that quiz first period."

Skylar yawned again and leaned her shoulder against the wall near Nikki and Brady, eyes drooping closed. "Senseisevil," was her mumbled explanation. "M'tired."

"We h-have a quiz?" Owen asked, looking instantly distressed.

"It's open note," Nikki told him, to which the young wolf looked only slightly less worried. Collin patted Owen on the shoulder, muttering to just cheat off of Dawn if he couldn't remember the answers.

"I heard that, Littlesea, and the last person that cheated off of me is still ruing it to this day."

"Ruing? I love it when you talk dirty, Ateara."

Nikki giggled and glanced up at Brady, whose brow was furrowed. He caught her grin and made a little face at her, which had her laughing openly now.

Dawn wasn't having nearly as much fun. "Where are my pens? Skylar, my good pens are gone!"

"You can borrow one of mine," Collin said helpfully, but it only earned him a look of death from Quil's cousin.

Dawn launched into a lecture about how she had picked these pens for a reason, because it was annoying to have pens with inconsistent ink flows. She had spent extra money to be sure that her pens were always properly working, and no thank you but she didn't want one of Collin Littlesea's pens. They probably were idiots too. Each word was punctuated by Dawn tearing through her book bag and locker with a sort of manic determination that had Owen edging away from her, and Collin raising an eyebrow. By the end of her rant, Dawn finally slammed her locker door shut.

"They're at my house, aren't they?" Dawn asked Skylar, looking frustrated. "When you said you needed to copy my notes, you used my good pens. And when you said you put everything back in my bag, you forgot my pens."

Skylar gave Dawn a sleepy smile, blinking innocently. "Hmm?"

However a look of horror had filled Dawn's face. "Skylar? You just forgot the pens, right? _Just_ the pens and not the notes that you used the pens to copy?"

The taller young woman scratched the back of her neck, glancing around for help that wasn't coming. "Umm, well it was so hard to wake up this morning…and you were taking so long in the shower, I kind of fell back asleep. And then the rushing to get here on time…"

"_Skylar!_"

Nikki was pretty sure that Dawn's shriek was far more painful for the wolves' ears than it was for her own, but Nikki still winced.

"She's going to kill me," Skylar muttered out of the corner of her mouth to Nikki. Nikki grinned, and unthinkingly slid her hand into the larger one that had been brushing against her own.

"You committed a cardinal sin, Sky," Nikki murmured. "What did you think was going to happen?"

Skylar sighed and then shrugged. "It's fine, just take mine." But when Skylar opened her book bag, it was mostly empty. "Huh. Dawn? Did I leave my stuff at your house?"

At which point Dawn started freaking out. "We have an open note quiz!" she said in a panic. "How am I supposed to do the quiz without the notes?"

"Copy mine," Nikki said, letting go of Brady's hand and reaching for her bag.

"Class is in four minutes!"

Nikki shrugged, pulling out her notebook and flipping to the section her notes were in. They were covered in sketches of little basketball Nikkis doing various activities, but they were there. "Just take mine, Dawn. Your grade matters more to you than mine does to me."

Dawn eyed Nikki's notes with an expression of pain, fingers twitching towards the notebook. "No…yes, I want them, but no. I can't do that to you."

Collin had been watching this, an expression of amusement on his face. "Hey Brade, do you get the feeling that these three sink or swim together? If I fix this for you, Ateara, do I get that date?" Collin asked, cornering Dawn between her locker door, Nikki, and Owen's lanky form with the ease of a practiced hunter.

"Fix it? How are you going to _fix it_? There's no fixing it! There's no notes, Collin."

Collin shifted in closer to Dawn, grinning down at her sexily. "You didn't answer my question."

Brady grunted and took the notebook out of Nikki's hand, tossing it to Collin. "Just fix this shit, dude, before she hyperventilates. It's Emb's fault in the first place."

Nikki wasn't sure about the logic behind that, but Collin seemed to agree. Dawn looked at them suspiciously, like she believed that the wolves were messing with her.

"Collin can fix it," Brady said from behind Nikki, and she couldn't help biting the side of her lip when he took her hand again, fingers entwining in her own. "But not if you're gonna be a bitch about it." Nikki shot him a look, and Brady blinked, looking confused. "What? I didn't _call_ her a bitch. I said that he wouldn't help her if she didn't stop _being_ a bitch."

"That's the same thing," Nikki argued, but Brady seemed certain that it wasn't.

Dawn took a deep, calming breath. "Collin, if you fix this for me, I'll be very grateful. And I'll—"

"Go out with me."

"I have a boyfriend!"

Collin leaned his elbow over her head, knowing that she had nowhere to go to escape him. "Are you sure?" he asked, voice lowering enough that he practically oozed sex appeal. Normally Skylar would have been intervening at this point, but she had spied a package of mini blueberry muffins in the side of Owen's book bag and was eyeing it longingly. He noticed and handed it to her, causing Skylar to make a happy noise.

No one was sure who shot the rubber band that promptly hit Skylar's forehead, but the messy haired sophomore narrowed her eyes and peered around Owen suspiciously.

"Fine!" Dawn finally conceded, looking on the verge of tears. "I'll go out on a date with you, Collin, but no kissing, no tongue, and absolutely nothing below your waist comes in any contact with anything of mine. Just _please_, class starts in two minutes!"

Collin winked at her before straightening. "We can work out the details later."

The school was tyrannical about their paper usage, and the copier in the office was off limits to every student, no matter what the reason. And sure enough, Collin Littlesea ambled right on into the office and ambled right on out again a minute later, with two copies of Nikki's notes. All three girls stared at him in shock.

"Told you," Brady murmured in Nikki's ear as Collin handed one copy to Skylar.

Collin kept the other behind his back, not letting Dawn grab it from him. "I'm not going to _make_ you go on a date with me, beautiful," Collin purred into her ear. "A hug and a thank you are good enough."

The bell rang, making Dawn tardy for the first time that Nikki could ever remember. With a yelp, Dawn flung her arms around Collin's waist, then snatched the notes out of his hand. It had to be the fastest hug in history, followed by an eww and a shudder, but her thank you was legitimate. Nikki knew Dawn well enough to know that was real gratitude in her eyes. Nikki also knew Collin's reputation well enough to know that the wolf had officially just snuck his foot in the door when it came to Dawn, and by the look of satisfaction on Collin's face, he knew it too.

"You're not sleeping with my friend, Collin," Nikki reminded him, to which Collin just grinned mischievously. It was almost comical how much pleasure he seemed to be getting from this.

"How's that fair? _You're_ welcome to sleep with _my_ friend all you want, Nikki."

Of course Collin made sure to say it loudly enough that Nikki squeaked with embarrassment and fled after Dawn. Skylar paused long enough to give him the finger for all three of their sakes, but it was clear by her lazy grin that her heart wasn't in it.

As Brady's rare but very pleasant laughter followed her down the hall, it occurred to Nikki that her embarrassment just might have been worth it.

* * *

><p>Since the actual ranking imprint had decided to bolt with their eldest she-wolf, the position of ranking imprint had fallen squarely on the shoulders of someone else. That someone else was holding the position magnificently.<p>

The La Push Pack were back to holding Pack meetings every Friday, just to give Cassie the opportunity to stand in front of them with her little notebook, cheerfully checking things off the "list". The list varied. Sometimes it was actual business, involving adjusted patrol routes and schedules, updates on absent Packmates, and information on the situation involving the search for Alice Cullen. Sometimes it was what Paul Coho had eaten for breakfast, and how much Cassie liked Collin's new shoes. Whether silly or serious, Cassie never failed to be ready for the meeting, and it was clear that Jake was not only appreciative of not having to run the meetings himself, but that he was beginning to rely on Cassie to keep track of things for the Pack.

As the ranking imprint, Cassie often cast several votes with her fellow imprints and lobbied Jake accordingly. By lobbying, the tiny blonde followed Jake around, using her ability to talk circles around the Alpha, hounding him mercilessly.

They wanted to be at all of the Pack meetings and to have a larger in say in what happened, because the choices of one so greatly affected the choices of them all. They wanted the Alpha's restrictions on their movements lessened. They were adult women, most of them anyways, and it was humiliating to have to ask permission to leave their own town and to do so under guard. They wanted all the wolves still in school to not have to patrol as much, because both Kim and Cassie were afraid Collin and Brady weren't going to make it through the school year. They wanted Renesmee to be allowed to run patrols with the wolves since she was missing Jack so badly, and that way she would feel more a part of the Pack. They wanted the Pack to start noticing the fact that teenage drug use and alcoholism was getting worse every year on the rez, and that there was no point protecting the tribe from vampires if all the kids were going to overdose before they were eaten.

They each wanted a chocolate dipping fountain, but they were willing to share custody of one and pass it around.

To his credit, Jake listened. Some things he gave way to, some things he remained steadfast about, but the Alpha always listened. He caved quickly to allowing them access to all meetings, and to having Renesmee run with them whenever the half-vampire felt the desire, as long as Renesmee fell back if a vampire broke the borders. He had adjusted the schedule for Owen and Collin, but Callie and Brady had a bad habit of getting themselves into worse trouble when left to their own devices, and both rarely paid enough attention in class to do their homework at night anyways. And the Alpha adjusted patrol routes to weave in closer to town, using the Pack to unapologetically bust up gatherings where drugs could be scented, or alcohol in excess.

Jake was still gun-shy about having the imprints out of the circle of the Pack's protection, but he was wavering for Emily and Kim. They had to travel a lot for their business, and it was disrupting the patrols to constantly to keep a wolf with them. As long as the pair were always reachable by phone, and someone in the Pack knew where they were, they could go as they pleased. Within reason. No trips to Seattle when the Calgary wolfborn were visiting their favorite restaurant. No trips much further, unless accompanied. The Alpha knew only too well how helpless it felt to need to protect someone that was simply too far out of reach.

Cassie had to stay where she was, unless she had him, Seth, Paul, or two wolves on her at all times. The Alpha refused to waver on that, but he did get her a used chocolate fountain from the party supply store in Forks.

In general the girls were calling it a win.

While there were always the occasional issues, life had been calmer since the previous spring. Which was why today's Packmeeting had mostly centered around the topic of who wanted to switch patrols with who. Afterwards the conversation shifted to general Pack activities, of which there were now more of, and being reminded by the tiny blonde imprint that after today, casual Fridays weren't voluntary but mandatory, and any shirts found on any of the wolves after five pm would be confiscated immediately by Paul.

Collin formally petitioned for Pack unity, insisting that the imprints be included in that rule, earning himself a smirk from Callie and a pleased smile from Cassie. When Emily played along with Collin just to see Sam turn interesting shades of purple, things generally started to disintegrate into disarray. However, when Renesmee shyly informed them that she was willing to participate in all Pack activities, but she would have to ask her parents' permission first before taking her clothing off, Jake had decided that maybe things were going too far afield.

"Okay, casual Friday is currently suspended until further rules about who is wearing what can be agreed to," the Alpha told Cassie, looking equal amounts tired and amused. "Anything else, Cass? I don't like leaving just Esme and Bells on the border."

"I'm almost done," Cassie chirped to the assembled wolves and imprints. "Last order of business: everyone that votes for a Monday night Pack dinner of spaghetti awesomeness, raise your hands."

Everyone but Jared raised their hands. Cassie grinned and drew a smiley face next to scribbles on her paper. The second wolf to phase frowned at them, as if in betrayal. "Well, I vote for tacos," Jared spoke up grumpily. He had seemed grumpy from the moment Brady had slunk into the meeting at Collin's heels, both wolves late and knowing the meeting was being held up for them.

When asked why they were late, Collin's cheerful commentary about how deep Brady's tongue had been in Nikki's mouth hadn't really helped them any. The last week at school had been spent doing exactly that, every chance Brady could get: kissing her in the hallways, kissing her by her locker, kissing her back behind the building after class. Kissing Nikki Connweller was usually the best part of Brady's day. Nikki was still pretty shy around him, and almost constantly smelled nervous, and so she didn't ask him lots of questions. It was nice being around someone who knew what he was but who didn't try to butt in on his business.

Or bitch about him spending the few days week sleeping out in the shed in the woods.

When everyone rolled their eyes at Jared's choice of food, his narrowed. "What?"

"You always vote for tacos, Jared," Kim murmured to the wolf sitting with his arm around her waist. "And because you vote for tacos, Brady and Paul vote for tacos, and Collin will vote what Paul wants. Owen will vote what Collin votes, Sam will cave to what you and Paul want, Emily and I will have to change our votes to avoid 'taco-betrayal rants', and Cassie doesn't care as long as she's getting fed. Nessie will try to support her fellow imprints, and that leaves the vote at least ten to five in favor of tacos. We've had tacos all summer, sweetie."

Jared glowered. "Well, they're _awesome_. Why would anyone _not_ want to vote for tacos?"

Owen must have thought Jared really wanted to know, because their youngest wolf looked up at him apologetically. "I still…break them," Owen spoke slowly, seeming embarrassed. "I always hold them…t-too hard."

"Then Collin's not doing his job teaching you control," Paul rumbled from his place at Seth's side. "Collin—"

"Oh! Oh!" Cassie made a little happy noise and began bouncing around on her stool, waving her hand in the air. "_Paul_!"

Paul paused midsentence, a look of fondness crossing his features. "Yeah, momma?"

"I propose a Pack bonding activity involving the practice of physical control. As the medium for said practice, I recommend that we use hard shell tacos and tasty beef. And cheese. We need to practice control with cheese."

Paul grinned as Jake simultaneously frowned. "Uh, Cass," Jake said, "I'm not sure I've got the cash to fund two Pack dinners this week—"

"It's not two Pack dinners, it's one Pack dinner and a Pack bonding activity, of the type that you, the Alpha, declared necessary. As is stipulated by the rules and regulations of all Alpha decrees, the Alpha shall fund the Pack bonding activities of which are regularly enforced per his wishes. All in favor of Jake providing both a spaghetti dinner _and_ buying tacos this week?"

"I," the Pack instantly chorused, at least everyone but Callie, and most of them grinned wolfishly at Jake. The Alpha groaned and looked at the Pack for help. No one backed down, and then he shook his head. "They're all traitors, Cal, every single one of you."

"Has anyone noticed that Cassie's the only one who knows the rules and regu—oomph!" Brady's words were cut off by Collin's hand wrapped around the front of his face.

"Good meeting, momma imprint," Collin called out cheerfully. "Anything else on the to-do list?"

Cassie peered at her paper, her brows knotting together, and then she shrugged. "Nope, I'm out. Jake?"

The Alpha shook his head, and he straightened. "Naw, that's all. I'm gonna go sell some blood or some shit to pay for all this."

"Actually, Jacob, you would need to sell plasma, and I'm not sure that the standard forty dollars would cover the cost of providing enough food to feed the Pack two complete meals," Renesmee spoke up helpfully. "Since you're a healthy, virile, college-aged adult male, you would most likely find paid sperm donation to be far more lucrative."

"Dude, what does virile mean?" Collin whispered to Brady, who shrugged.

"I think it means that he pays attention to shit," the other young wolf replied.

"Actually, the word virile means being capable of functioning as a male during the act of copulation," Renesmee explained sweetly. "Which is only natural for the dominant male of any herd or pack to be virile. In traditional wolf packs, only the alpha male and female are guaranteed the right to breed, and since Jacob is the Alpha, he's the only one of us that would definitely be allowed to reproduce in more natural settings. Most likely with Cassie, since she's the most dominant female available."

Renesmee paused, realizing that they were all staring at her, Jake with a look of horror, Cassie with curiosity, and Paul with no expression at all. The teenager's cheeks turned pink. "Not that she _is_ available, since wolves mate for life, although I suppose if Paul grew sick or injured, and he died or the Pack had to kill him, it would only be natural that she become his optimum…choice…"

Most of them were snickering at Jake, but Quil was losing it in the far corner.

Cassie turned a cheeky grin Jake's way. "Do you think you could keep up with me, Jake?" she asked, her voice purring in a way that had Jake turning crimson. "I always have been able to respect virility in my dominant male speculative sexual partners."

"Cass, be nice," Paul rumbled, and she laughed, winking at Jake.

"New rule, Ness," Jake growled. "No discussing my…copulation ability."

Renesmee flushed, as if embarrassed to be disciplined in front of the Pack. "Of course, Jacob, I'm sorry. I just had heard you discussing it with Quil and Embry the other day, and I assumed that if it was an appropriate topic with them, it would be an appropriate topic for all of us."

"And what were you three doing talking about copulation in front of her?" Emily wondered, raising an eyebrow, and all three men went crimson.

Seth uncurled himself from his lounging position against the porch steps. "I've got something."

"Seth, don't," Jake growled quietly, sounding frustrated, but Seth ignored him.

"I'd like to make an official request to leave La Push and go find Leah and Samantha. You know, our two missing she-wolves. The ones that could be in danger or be enslaved by another Alpha as we sit around talking about _tacos _andgetting_ laid_."

Embry's face grew stony, his eyes bleak as he turned to look out at the trees. Paul had the expression of one caught in the middle and hating every second of it, but Jake just rubbed his face tiredly.

"_No_, Seth. No, like it's been every other meeting since last spring. Meeting over."

"I'd like to make a second official request for you to _pull your head out of your ass_ and _let me get my goddamn family_ _home! _They still matter to me, even if you don't give a shit about what happens to them," Seth snapped, and Jake swung around to face him, eyes flashing.

As always, when the two Pack leaders collided, the rest of them went wide eyed, the most submissive growing extremely still. Cassie was too close, but instead of backing away, she slid off of her stool and in between them, grabbing Seth's arm.

"Seth, please don't," she started, but then Collin had her, pulling her back.

Paul was stuck, because Jake and Seth were both between him and his imprint, but a swing of his eyes had been all he'd needed to have Collin moving in his place. Brady wondered if he would ever be that fast to listen to Jared, if he ever had the ability to be where he needed to be, when it was needed. Unconsciously, his eyes slid to Jared, but Jared was watching their leaders, a frown on his face.

Callie had moved just as quickly as Collin, hooking her arm around Jake's waist from behind. The she-wolf growled into Jake's back. "Seth, you're a fucking idiot if you think that. If you think that, you don't know him at all."

Seth snorted, but then he turned and walked into the woods behind his house, apparently done talking about it. Every meeting Seth said the same thing, and every meeting Jake replied the same way. Considering Seth was as strong now as Jake had been a year ago, the tension it caused between the two was stressful to all of them. In the wake of conflict, the wolves made space around Jake quickly, even Paul and Cassie.

Brady saw Jared's head start to swing his way, so he moved before the older wolf could lock eyes with him. He hadn't slept at the apartment since Monday night, and at this point, Brady knew that Jared was definitely pissed with him. Brady had worn the same clothes the last two days just to avoid the male wolf who seemed to always be waiting at home.

Renesmee was still standing in her spot, looking distressed at Seth and Jake fighting, so Brady found himself walking over to her. The half-vampire imprint had matured over the summer, but she still had that awkwardness about her, an awkwardness magnified by the fact that she always seemed to be looking over their shoulders, searching for something that wasn't there. The second half of a whole that no one had understood but the two parts. Brady kind of got it, he was still looking over his own shoulder, expecting to find the ancient wolf still on his heels. Brady had liked Jack and missed him like hell. They were Pack…they were supposed to be together, not lost to each other, left behind and wondering.

Not even Jake could feel Jack anymore. The wolf was too far away.

"Hey Ness," Brady grunted, watching her turn around and offer him a shy smile. Renesmee would always be too strange for Brady—he didn't think he could ever get past how damn fast she grew, no matter _what_ she looked like—but he could see the promise of the stunning beauty she would become. Too beautiful, too perfect, and for some reason Brady resisted against it. He didn't want beautiful, he couldn't imagine standing next to beautiful for the rest of his life. Brady would be too tempted to destroy it, to bring it down to his level.

For a moment, the troubled young man had a moment of startling clarity. He was just like his father. Brady destroyed everything he touched, just so he wouldn't have to compare it to himself.

Renesmee opened her mouth, but Brady was already moving past her. It would be better for her to stay away from him. It was just…better.

"_Brady_."

And then there was that. Before Jared had a chance to order him to come back, Brady took off at a trot into the treeline. The woods behind Seth's house closed in around him, a world of looming branches and crawling mist, earth and bark and stone, browns and greys and greens. A world that separated him from the real world, a world that Brady wasn't very fond of. It was easier out here, simpler. Quieter. No one needed anything from him out here, no one expected things from him.

When were people going to figure out that expecting anything at all from him was a lost cause?

Brady hadn't meant to trail Seth, but once he caught scent of the Beta, he found himself doing so anyways. He followed Seth for a long time, unconsciously practicing tracking the way Jack had taught him to. Following the pull of Pack was fine and good, but the ancient wolf had told them that there was no point in listening to the wind and missing what lay right beneath one's own feet. Tracking wasn't easy for him, but Brady was better at it than he had been last year, and eventually he quit trying to use his nose to double check himself and simply followed Seth's trail.

Seth hadn't been going anywhere specific, at least, not that Brady could tell, but at some point his direction changed. This time Brady knew where the Beta was headed, and he knew that Seth wouldn't keep moving once he reached that place. It was tempting to turn around and walk away, but this was Seth. Leah and Sims might have pulled it off, but the rest of them just couldn't walk away when they knew their Beta was in pain.

Where Seth stopped didn't look all that different from the rest of the forest around them, but it was a place that would forever be seared into Brady's memory. The ground was no longer stained dark with the massive amounts of blood that Seth had bled in the very spot he was crouching, and the earth had been turned over long ago to hide what had happened here. But Brady had almost lost his Beta in this place on that Christmas day.

It had been a bad day full of bad things. The day that Brady had felt Jared's heart shred beneath losing his brother, shredding the rest of their hearts in turn. The first time Brady had realized that Collin could scare him just as much as Jake and Paul could.

Seth didn't scare Brady. He should, he was strong enough, but Seth didn't scare him. Instead Seth made Brady want to drop to his belly and crawl to his Beta's side, to keep his face in the dirt until the expression of angry hurt faded away from Seth's own.

"You're thinking loudly enough that I can hear you," Seth said quietly, not turning around. "You sure you want to be around me? I'm in a shit mood."

Well, yeah. That's why Brady was here, wasn't it? Moving slowly and giving Seth plenty of chances to order him away, Brady stepped up behind his Beta and sank to his knees. For a while they stayed like that, with Brady quiet and Seth the same.

"She never forgave herself for Dad," Seth eventually said, sounding frustrated and lonely. "Leels always blamed herself for what happened to him, even though it was both of us that phased that day. She always was so strong, and she always stepped in between me and Mom and the worst of what was out there. It used to bug the hell out of me, because she always treated me like a little kid. I tried to protect her, but she was always one step ahead of me. But bunny lop was always one step behind me. I could protect her the way I couldn't protect Leah."

There was nothing Brady could say to that, so he didn't, but he did scoot forward a few inches so that he was within reach. When Seth's hand fisted on the back of his neck, Brady bent his head more, giving his Beta something substantial to hold on to.

"She didn't phase right, Brady," Seth growled, frustration giving rise beneath the spoken words. "She did it to save my stupid ass from my stupid ass mistakes, and now Sims is out there, all messed up with no clue how to be a wolf yet. And Leels couldn't ever see the look in her own eyes when she got pulled like that…Leels had no idea she wasn't thinking straight. She was just running because some damn thing out there was making her do it. And we just let them go? It's like pulling a pin on a grenade and pretending it's not going to explode. It's stupid and it's reckless, and we know better. What the _hell_ is Jake _thinking_?"

Seth's hand had tightened, so Brady bent more, inhaling through his nose and exhaling through his mouth, trying not to tremble beneath the weight of Seth's emotions.

"I've tried to break loose of the Pack three times and I can't," Seth admitted, voice lowered with anger. And—for the first time Brady had heard it from Seth—shame. "Jake won't _let_ me go after them, and I've tried to force my way past it, but I can't. What if something happens and Leels finally needs me? What if Sims needs me like she always does? And I'm trapped here, because he won't _let_ me?"

Brady wanted to tell his Beta that they were all trapped here, but he knew that Seth knew it. Seth seemed to realize what he was doing, and he shifted his hand to Brady's shoulder instead, tugging him more upright. Seth had never asked them to sit the way Brady was sitting, even if it was instinct sometimes.

"I'm sorry, Brady," Seth said, sounding like the anger was draining from him. Or at least, sounding as if he was putting that anger aside for now. It was obvious that Seth was out here shredding himself over them, and Brady felt the guilt rise, along with the resentment. "Brady? You okay?"

Brady was trembling, because he was going to say something that he had never said to anyone before, not even to himself.

"Seth? Samantha phased for you, but she phased first for _me _down in the caves." Brady's shoulders tightened as he added roughly, "She had to save me first, and if she's fucked up now, it's my fault. It's because of me. If you want to sit out here and be pissed at someone, just be pissed at me."

Seth stared at Brady, and then the anger finally seemed to slide completely away. Brady found himself breathing easier, and leaning into the hand still on his shoulder. Seth's fingers squeezed, giving him a light shake. "Brady, are you ever going to stop adding things to your list?"

"What list?"

Seth smiled sadly. "The list of things you're determined to let beat you down, the list of things that you won't ever let yourself forget. Because we both know that if I tell you it's not your fault, you'll just ignore me."

Brady flushed at that, muttering defensively, "I'm not the one hiding out in the woods, being all emo and shit."

For some reason Seth arched an eyebrow and seemed far too amused at that. But his hand stayed on Brady's shoulder, and Brady stayed at Seth's side. Seth was his Beta, and when the leaders stumbled, it was up to the others beneath them to keep the leaders on their feet.

Seth quiet for a long time, and then he suddenly chuckled, a soft sound. "Those two have always done what they wanted, and to hell with what the rest of us felt about it. If either one of them saw me acting like this, they'd tell me I was an idiot. I guess…I guess what is messing with me so much is that I can understand Leels leaving, even if I don't like it. But what I can't figure out is why bunny lop went too. It just doesn't make sense."

Brady didn't know, so he didn't answer. He didn't know, he had never known, and he hated her for it.

"Yeah," Seth sighed and settled back down on the grass, hands fisted into the earth that had once almost taken him into it. "Yeah, sometimes me too."

* * *

><p>"Widen your stance." Skylar did as Embry said, yawning as she moved her feet. Embry looked far from impressed. "Wider, Sky. Come on, you know this stuff."<p>

"Yeah, but I'm _bored_. Can't we do something cool like break some boards?"

Embry obviously was biting down his initial reply to that comment, choosing instead to grunt, "Start the kata again, Skylar. If you get this down, you'll be ready to test for your next belt, and _then_ you can break some boards."

From her place on the edge of the mats, leaning against one of the mirrors that lined the wall, Nikki hid her grin. The girls often spent Friday nights at each other's houses, and since Skylar was staying over tonight, Nikki had come with her friend to Skylar's karate class. Embry had offered to let Nikki join in, but Nikki had been shy about doing so. A beginners class, maybe, but not this class. Nikki didn't know what ranks the belt colors signified, but a couple of the belts were blues and reds and browns, and they all seemed to know what they were doing. Even Skylar, who had told Nikki that she was the lowest ranking student there.

"You say that, but you know you won't let me test, Sensei," Skylar drawled, stretching her arms over her head to loosen tight muscles. She ambled back to her original spot on the mat where her last kata attempt had started. Halfway through that one, Embry had started watching, had started correcting, and had earned himself what looked to be like one hell of a headache in the making.

"I don't let you test because you don't _practice_, Skylar," Embry said with forced patience. "If you practiced, you wouldn't forget the moves of something I taught you two months ago."

Skylar grinned over at Nikki. "How can I practice something I can't remember, Sensei? You taught it to me _two months_ ago."

Someone snickered. It wasn't Embry.

Skylar had been a pain in Embry's ass all night, and her antics had carried over to some of the other students, distracting them and making their moves sloppy. The class was small, only six people, although from what Skylar had said, business was better for Embry than it had been during some previous months. Things were better for now, but Skylar said that it seemed like Embry had a stick wedged permanently up his ass these days, and it made training with him less fun.

Nikki didn't understand a lot of what they were doing, but even Nikki could tell that Embry was having a hard time keeping his temper. So much so that the tall, handsome wolf kept walking away under the pretense of getting drinks of water from a bottle on his desk. She wondered if anyone else could see how often Embry's hands would shake, or noticed that he kept them clasped behind his back to keep them from view.

Nikki didn't really know Embry Call all that well. She knew _about_ him, obviously, because who didn't in this town? Rumors had been swirling about him ever since Nikki had been old enough to realize what rumors were, and it had only gotten worse since she'd started high school.

Embry Call was young enough and good looking enough to be of significant interest to the local female population. Not only that, he had a job, his own business, and his own home. He didn't seem to drink much, or any really, and it was rare that he treated anyone unkindly. Nikki somewhat remembered hearing about Embry a few years ago, when he'd been as bad about sleeping around as Collin Littlesea was now, but that had been replaced in people's minds by the last year and a half of the Embry Call/Samantha Carter love story.

A love story that seemed to have left Embry Call the worse for it.

Nikki didn't really know Embry, but she had known Samantha Carter even less. The girl had shown up in La Push without warning, completely unaware of how much disruption she had left in her wake every time she walked into a room. It had always been hard to understand exactly why, but everyone seemed required to make adjustments around her. How many times had Nikki wanted to talk to Brady at school, but hadn't because Samantha had been standing at his side? How many times had Nikki seen someone step aside and let her pass by, making room for her even if the slender brunette had never actually needed it? The force of her personality, as quiet as it had been, had still been frighteningly strong.

Skylar had once said that Samantha had walked into the dojo one day, and walked out with Embry Call at her heels, with Skylar's sensei throwing everything from his dojo to his abdominals at her to try and keep her attention. There weren't a few on the rez that thought Samantha was a total bitch for taking off with Leah Clearwater the way she did, but Nikki tried to stay out of it. People were more complicated than anyone ever gave them credit for, and she doubted things were as cut and dry as they seemed.

When Skylar had botched three more attempts at her kata, Embry gave up on her and told her to go shadow one of the other students. After another couple minutes, he dismissed the class, dipping his head in acknowledgement to their respectful bows and thanks for the instruction. Skylar wandered off to the bathroom to change, leaving Nikki to sit alone in the dojo with Embry as he started to clean up the equipment in the dojo.

Embry, who was a wolf. Embry, who knew that _she_ knew he was a wolf. Embry, who had always been nice to her, but who she'd barely spoken to beyond a few niceties, and who Nikki had never been alone with for more than a minute or two. It was kind of awkward.

"I've got water under my desk if you're thirsty."

Nikki looked up and saw Embry give her a small, forced version of his normal smile. "Oh. Umm, I'm fine, thanks."

Embry nodded and went back to his work of straightening up the dojo, and Nikki wondered if she should help him. Towards the end of class, Embry had taken his students through a sort of martial arts obstacle course, involving them having to jump over piled up kick shields, weave backwards through a series of clap paddles laid out on the floor, and perform strikes on a standing punching bag that was in the shape of a man. A lot of things had been left on the floor, and Embry seemed to have forgotten to instruct his students to clean up after themselves.

Right as she opened her mouth to offer, Embry stopped in his tracks, staring at the clap paddle in his hand. His expression turned bleak and he dropped the clap paddle he was holding, letting it hit the ground where it was and leaving it there. Embry went to his desk and sat down heavily in his chair, ignoring the notebook he always recorded student progress in. Nikki only knew about that book because she and Skylar had stolen it twice and added in their own comments about everyone's progress, just because Skylar loved teasing Embry so much. Apparently he was meticulous about his students' training, but again, Nikki didn't know Embry all that well. Maybe he was planning on doing that later.

Nikki wasn't sure why she said it, and she knew it would probably cause more problems than it was worth, but he just looked so alone. Alone, sitting in his chair, staring at the desk in front of him as if he could see something on it that no one else could.

"Hey Embry?" Nikki heard herself ask. "Are you busy tomorrow? After you close the dojo?"

If he was surprised, Embry didn't show it. "Not really. Why?"

"Umm…well…"

Nikki hesitated, and when she did, the older wolf turned in his chair, paying more attention now. "Why, is something wrong?"

"No. Never mind, it was stupid."

Embry leaned forward in his chair, looking at her tiredly. "Nikki, you know about the Pack, you're Kim's little sister, _and_ you're dating Brady. That means you're Pack by proxy. So what's up? It's gonna bug me later if I have to wonder."

Nikki shrugged. "Well, it just seems like you could do with a little fun. Dawn, Skylar, and I were going hiking tomorrow, and since you're into all the athletics stuff, I thought you might want to come too. We weren't going to leave until after your class anyways, since Sky's going to be here. So there's time for you to meet up with us."

He seemed surprised at her invitation, but when the toilet flushed, Embry rubbed a hand across his eyes, as if they were hurting him.

"Thanks, but I'm fine," Embry grunted, but as he slumped deeper into his chair, it was clear that he wasn't. Even Nikki could see that.

When Skylar came out of the bathroom and saw that gear was still strewn around the floor mat, Nikki's friend's face shifted to one that Sky rarely let anyone else see: anger. Skylar never cleaned anything…_ever_…but wordlessly she started putting away workout gear. This time Nikki did help. Embry watched silently, eyes hard, as Skylar finished and walked over to his desk. She bowed, thanking Embry for the lesson, as she always did.

However, as soon as her feet had touched the outside of the doorway, before the door had even closed or they had gone down the stairs, Skylar looked over her shoulder at Nikki and said angrily, "He's letting our dojo go to hell because his girlfriend was a bitch to him. I don't know whose ass I want to kick more: his or hers."

Skylar didn't even try to lower her voice, and Nikki saw the wolf inside the building stiffen.

"He could hear you," Nikki murmured out of the corner of her mouth as they headed down the street.

Skylar just shrugged, the anger already fading from her eyes. "Yeah, he was supposed to. Everyone else is too scared of him to tell him, but I don't care. Hey, I grabbed a movie for us to watch tonight. Have you ever seen Manos Hands Of Fate?"

No, Nikki never had. And it was by far the worst movie that had ever been made, _ever_, no matter how many bags of candy and potato chips they consumed. Thankfully their next movie was better, and by the time Jed Connweller had given up trying to get the two girls to stop quoting the movie at the top of their lungs, Buttercup had been saved, the R.O.U.S.'s had in fact been determined that they did exist, and everyone in the general vicinity was preparing to die.

Nikki's father had suggested that maybe the girls try to find something else to watch, because even he was starting to have The Princess Bride memorized.

Nikki had found out early in life that few things were worth Dawn losing her full eight hours of sleep a night, that Skylar needed at least eleven or twelve to fully function, and that Nikki could never sleep after this quantity of junk food. So she was still awake past one, in her pajamas and curled up in bed, when Nikki suddenly heard a light tapping on her window. On the bed next to her, Skylar was snoring with abandon, arms spread out in every direction as the taller girl slept. The television in the corner of the room was still on, and Nikki had finally been growing drowsy as she flipped back and forth between late night talk shows, trying to ignore Skylar's various noises.

For a moment the tapping startled her, but then a familiar face appeared on the other side of the glass, partially hidden by the air conditioner screwed into the window frame. Brady was there, and thankfully this time there wasn't a Collin behind him. The large wolf gave her a smirk as he pointed at the window.

Nikki rolled her eyes, muttering, "I know, Dad's _insane_. Go over to the next window."

There was no way that she could have opened her own window without there being lots of noise involved. The house's air-conditioners were a by-product of Jed Connweller's constant paranoia after Jared Qahla had started 'hunting' his daughter. However the bathroom was only one room over, and no one woke up when Nikki padded down the hall and slipped inside, locking the door behind her. Kim had taught her plenty of life lessons, and the way to sneak a boy inside their house had been one of them. The bathroom window was squeaky, but nothing that a little bit of baby oil wouldn't silence. It had been a while since it had been used, so it took her a minute to do so. By the time she was done, it was clear that her visitor was growing impatient.

"You should have used WD40," Brady grunted in greeting, hoisting himself through the window gracefully. "I look like a burglar standing out here."

Nikki stuck her tongue out at him as she moved out of his way. "That stuff smells, and Dad would notice," Nikki whispered. "Why didn't you call me on the walkie talkie?"

"Your friend was asleep, and I didn't want her to wake up," Brady replied, his low voice made rougher by his attempted to keep it soft. "I think your dad is still up. The living room television is still on, but I couldn't tell."

"He's asleep. At least, he was an hour ago."

That seemed to please him, because Brady began to relax. His hands found her waist, and Nikki smiled up at him shyly. "Why are you here?" she asked, keeping her voice down in case her parents weren't as asleep as she thought.

"Jake wanted me to tell you to wait for Emb tomorrow, but he didn't say why," Brady rumbled as he shifted closer. She thought he smelled faintly of alcohol, but Brady's voice wasn't slurred at all and his eyes seemed clear. "Want to fill me in?"

"We're going hiking tomorrow, and I invited him. He seems lonely." Brady's face hardened, and he looked annoyed. It was one of the few times that Nikki had ever been able to gauge his mood. "What? Am I missing something?"

Obviously she was, but he equally obviously wasn't interested in sharing. Instead Brady's hands squeezed her hips. "Do you want to get out of here?" he asked, moving closer, and Nikki found herself shifting backwards to accommodate him.

Nikki flushed at that, conflicted. Did she want to go somewhere with Brady Jennings? Absolutely. Was she ready for what might happen in some place that she went with Brady Jennings? Maybe…maybe not. Did she want to sneak out to do so? Not really. And was it cool to bail on Skylar? Not at all.

"Sky's staying over," Nikki whispered, shaking her head regretfully. "Want to go with everyone tomorrow?"

Brady shook his head, and Nikki felt her hips gently bump the bathroom pedestal sink. "Collin and I have to take patrols during the day on weekends," Brady told her in his low voice, hands sliding back up to her waist and around the small of her back.

He leaned in and once again Nikki thought she could smell alcohol on his breath, but when he kissed her, he didn't taste like it. Not even when his tongue slid between her teeth, moving across her own. Nikki went up on her tiptoes as she leaned into the kiss. Brady's hands moved back down to her hips, a little lower, and suddenly Nikki let out a little yelp, her feet off the ground and dangling in the air as she was hoisted up to his height far more quickly than she had expected. His hands were wrapped beneath her thighs, supporting her easily as she flailed for balance.

The wolf grinned at her, a rare real one. "You're gonna wake everyone up," Brady teased her as she glared at him mock indignantly.

"You could have warned me."

"What's the fun in that?"

Nikki wrapped her arms around Brady's neck, realizing that off balance or not, his grip on her was secure enough that she wasn't sliding anywhere. "Usually when someone picks me up, I end up getting thrown into the ocean. The last time was Jake, after Paul's wedding reception."

"The last time someone picked me up, it was Jake twenty minutes ago," Brady said, looking amused. "And he threw my ass in the ocean too."

"How come you're not wet?"

"I'm hot, so it dries my clothes faster."

"You're hot, huh?" Nikki teased, arching an eyebrow, and for once he was the one that blushed. As often as she was the one turning shades of pink and red around him, it was nice. This time she was the one grinning, and he was the one glaring at her. At least until she unwrapped her right arm from his neck and groped his bicep playful, murmuring, "Why is it that the hot guys only show up around here after midnight?"

"I was busy keeping your ass from getting eaten by leeches," Brady grunted grumpily, but when Nikki looked at him, she saw that the flush on his face had deepened. And sour face or not, his hands tightened around her thighs, hoisting her up higher.

Funny, how when he looked the meanest was when his mouth moved over hers the gentlest.

This time when she bumped into something, Nikki expected it. Brady moved slower as he sidestepped and pressed her back into the narrow linen closet door, the one built in between the toilet and the sink. At first he simply kissed her lightly, but then he rested more of his weight against her, using only one arm to support her and bracing his other above her head. The kiss deepened, and Nikki felt heat starting to build in her stomach, twisting down to other parts of her. Unfortunately the door was making creaking noises behind her.

"Brady, this is too loud," Nikki whispered. "We're going to wake my parents. Mom's a light sleeper."

He made a noise of frustration, and let her slide down to her feet. Bending down to kiss her, the way he did in school, was nice, but not as nice as the first way had been. He was just so tall, and she was so short, and kissing like that only worked when they weren't pressing this tightly into each other. The angle was too severe, and it hurt both their necks.

Brady backed off, an expression of annoyance on his face. "This is the smallest bathroom in existence," he muttered, looking around for something somewhere they could go. Nikki bit her lower lip, but started grinning as she reached for his hand. He stiffened a little when she touched him first, but when Nikki tugged him towards the small but flat-walled tile shower, Brady went willingly. His lips curved upwards as she backed into the shower, pulling him inside with her.

"Already?" Brady teased her, acting as if he was going to take off his shirt. "I don't know, Nik, you move a little fast for me…"

"You wish," Nikki snorted, but she was still grinning as he moved in, hands finding her waist. His head bumped into the loofa hanging from the showerhead on the adjoining wall, and Brady made Nikki giggle when he snapped his teeth playfully at it.

Maybe it should have made her feel claustrophobic, being cornered into a shower stall that was barely wider than Brady was, but Nikki wasn't scared of him. She liked Brady, she liked him a lot, and so she trusted him. This time Brady hoisted her up with one arm, higher so that her neck was at his face level, and she hooked her knees over his hips, knowing that she didn't need to actually hold on tightly. She knew that Brady wasn't going to let her fall.

So far all the kissing had stayed fairly tame, but when his mouth pressed just behind the lob of her ear, his breath hot on her skin, Nikki shivered. Brady paused, and then did the same thing, sucking lightly at her flesh as he carefully put her shoulder blades to the tile wall. Nikki felt her body tighten in response, from her neck to her toes, unable to stifle the small noise of pleasure that came from her mouth.

"That?" Brady asked quietly into her ear, as if needing confirmation that she liked what he was doing. Nikki nodded wordlessly, nails digging into his broad shoulders.

This time, when he moved back to her neck, repeating the same action, Nikki tilted her head sideways, giving him access. Her shirt had ridden up when he had lifted her, and Brady's free hand had found her bared waist, just above her hipbone. The heat of his skin against hers felt good. Really good. Good enough that when he started kissing his way down her neck, towards her chest, Nikki arched into the contact. He was rubbing his hand up and down her side, going a little higher with each stroke, as if trying to figure out just how much she was comfortable with, how far she would let him go. But it was hard to think about what she was comfortable with when his mouth kept moving down and his hand kept moving up, and what she really wanted him to kiss and touch was in between those places.

Nikki wasn't sure what to do with her hands, but it stopped mattering when Brady paused, rubbing his thumb across her ribcage, just beneath the curve of her breast. He waited, as if giving her a chance to pull away. Part of her thought about it, but not faster than the other part of her…the part that leaned into his touch.

Brady's mouth found hers again, and Nikki started to wrap her arms around his neck, right at the same time that Brady's hand touched her bra-covered breast. She had known it was going to happen, but it still startled her enough that Nikki jerked a little in his arms. Unfortunately this was the smallest bathroom in existence, and just because the tile wall didn't make noise, it didn't suddenly give them more room to move around.

At one-thirty in the morning, when she was supposed to be in bed asleep and not letting Brady Jennings get to second base in her shower, Nikki's elbow accidentally knocked the water on.

Nikki's house was old, and the plumbing was old. Old plumbing can be loud plumbing, clunking and creaking and groaning when it's turned on, especially when no water had been running for anything besides normal bathroom use since that morning. Nikki's house was no exception. So while opening a window didn't wake anyone up, and the squeaky linen closet door didn't wake anyone up, the shower turning on sure did.

Never had _anything_ sounded as loud in her life.

"Oh _no_," Nikki gasped in horror as water smacked down on both of them, Brady blinking in surprise. Nikki could hear voices in the hallway, her mother talking to Skylar. "Shit shit shit! Brady, close the curtain!"

"What?" He seemed to be distracted, probably because her breast was still in his hand. "Huh?"

The breast in his hand turned into two wedged into his face as Nikki used his neck as an anchor to hoist herself higher, practically climbing over Brady's head to grab the curtain and jerk the darkly-patterned shower curtain closed.

There was a knock on the door, followed by her mother's voice. "Nikki? Are you alright? Why are you taking a shower this late?"

"I'm fine, Mom," Nikki called back, trying to keep the panic from her voice. Brady was grinning openly, ignoring how the water was soaking his clothes and obviously enjoying how the water was soaking her own. Just because Nikki slept in a bra for comfort didn't mean that she slept in a heavy one, and Nikki knew that he could see every inch of the outline of her chest.

"It's really late, honey, why are you in the shower?"

"It's really late, honey, why are you in the shower?" Brady breathed into Nikki's ear playfully, hand moving. She yelped, then bit her tongue, horrified. The son of a bitch had tweaked her nipple!

"Nikki? Did you just hurt yourself?" This time her mother's voice was much clearer, and Brady suddenly went still as a stone. Oh lord, the door was open. Hadn't she locked it? She _had_! She had turned the lock thingy! "Honey, are you sure you're okay?"

"I'm fine, I just couldn't sleep," Nikki replied weakly, heart pounding in her ears. "I was going to take a hot shower to try and relax. Go back to bed, Mom."

"Why is the window open?" Now even Brady looked panicked as Nikki's mother walked through the bathroom to the window, closing it. "Nikki, you know that's not safe. Someone pervert could have climbed in."

It really didn't help that even through the walls and the water running, Nikki could still hear Skylar laughing her ass off in the next room.

"Umm, I'll be more careful next time. Sorry, Mom."

Apparently that was enough, because her mother sighed. "Okay, just keep it short," Nikki's mother said before closing the door again.

Brady was soaked, and Nikki wasn't any better. "You need to leave," she breathed, fingernails digging into his shoulders to get his attention. "Brady! _You need to leave_."

"Why? We didn't get caught."

Well, he did have a point…

Brady's brown eyes sparkled as he tugged on a strand of her wet hair. "You have to stay in here for a while, anyways. No point in wasting the hot water."

"We've been going out for a week, Brady, I'm not taking a shower with you," Nikki argued, but she already knew that she was giving in. Probably because he was sinking to his knees on the floor of the shower, her still wrapped around him, and Nikki wasn't even trying to wiggle free. The water sounded more normal now, mostly hitting the back of her head and her shoulders, instead of his taller, broader form, and Nikki could appreciate that he thought of doing so. Besides, she liked how the water looked as it ran off of her face and hair and into his own.

"You've got ten minutes, I never take showers for longer than fifteen," she murmured. "But then you _have_ to go, okay?"

"Yeah, I got it," he rumbled back, eyes sweeping her features, looking at her in a way Nikki wasn't used to being looked at.

The adrenaline of almost getting caught had left her heart racing, and Nikki took Brady's face in her hands, kissing him passionately. Maybe he was feeling the same way, because Brady's fingers fisted in her hair, and he attacked her mouth like a man starved. This time when his hand found her breast, it was outside of her shirt, and she didn't jump. It felt strange at first, having him squeeze her breast like he was, but when his thumb brushed over her nipple, strange turned into something a whole lot better.

Nikki made a noise of pleasure, louder than she would have wanted to, but unable to stifle herself. Brady repeated the action, softer and harder in turns, until they both realized how much pressure she liked. It was difficult to know what he liked, because Brady never made a noise besides to ask her if what he was doing was too hard or not, but she knew that he liked _something_ about what they were doing. The proof of that pressed into her thigh, every time his actions made her hips rock involuntarily into Brady's own.

Their ten minutes stretched into twenty, stretched into longer, and when the water started running cold, Nikki knew she needed to stop this. It was just so difficult, when Brady's mouth had replaced his hands on the outside of her water soaked shirt. Having his hands on her felt so _good_. "Brady. Brady, you need to go. Seriously, I mean it this time."

He groaned, as if she was cruel, but when she reached behind them and turned the water off, Brady stood back up, helping her back to her now shaky feet. Her lips were sore, and her chest was too, but it was a good sore. Realizing how far they had gone, Nikki flushed, not looking up at Brady as he grabbed a towel for her.

"Here," he murmured, handing it to her. "Ditch the clothes and I'll stash them so your mom doesn't see them."

Nikki's eyes widened when she realized what he meant, and Brady grunted, somehow managing to sound affectionate in his annoyance. "I'm not gonna look, Nik. Unless you want to explain to them why your clothes are soaking wet tomorrow, or why you're using the dryer in the middle of the night."

"Fine, but no peeking."

As far as she knew, Brady never peeked, but when she was stripped to her bra and underwear and safely covered in her towel, he turned around, eyes sliding over her form. A tension in him that she hadn't noticed before now seemed to have lessened. "After you get back tomorrow, let's go out," Brady said quietly, tugging the edge of her towel. "A real date, without anyone else this time."

Nikki nodded, feeling a slow, stupid smile spreading across her face. "Yeah, okay. That sounds fun."

He nodded, seeming pleased, and brushed a strand of wet hair from her eyes before tilting her head up so that he could give her a brief, chaste kiss. "Lock that behind me," he told her, giving her a little wink as he took her jeans and shirt. "There are perverts around here."

Nikki grinned and watched Brady slip out of the window, just as graceful as he had been coming in. And also leaving her with a waterlogged bathroom where he had walked. It took Nikki a bit to sop everything up, then she took off her bra and snuck down the hall, back into her room.

Her alarm clock said two-thirty am. She and Brady had been making out in the shower for a whole _hour_. Her mother must have fallen back asleep, because otherwise Piper would definitely have come to check on her. Nikki was never in the bathroom that long. Skylar was still awake, and she gave Nikki a look close to disappointment as Nikki quickly changed into fresh pajamas, hiding her soaked underclothes at the bottom of her hamper. "What?"

The other girl just sighed mournfully and pulled her blanket over her head. "I suppose babies made in bathrooms don't _have_ to be retarded. His babies might be, but—"

"No one's making babies, Skylar. We were just…"

"Doing the traditional Quileute bathroom pre-baby making dance?"

"Shut up!" Nikki laughed, thumping her friend's shoulder with her foot.

The young woman was still grinning as she crawled back beneath the covers, knowing that the reasons why weren't Skylar's mock-drumbeats on a half full bag of potato chips next to the bed. This time Nikki fell asleep right away, still thinking about Brady Jennings' hands. And shoulders. And mouth. And lips….

* * *

><p>"Dude, you didn't shut the window or check the door? Come on! You <em>always<em> have to shut the window and check the door. That's after hours, home invasion, pussy hunting protocol."

"Just shut up and glue the chair, mother fucker."

"I love you too, Brade."

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A/N The Packgirls Wolf Den has been busier lately, so I'll be reposting a link to it on my profile. Anyone who wants to swing by and hang out with us is more than welcome! Also, thanks to margot and chicadee for all the help with plotting this chapter, plotting these series, and plotting life in general. You two are beyond awesome. (glomps)


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